The emergency order unanimously pass by Urbana City Council on March 16th 2020 continues to come under scrutiny by citizens. We’ve just received notice that since Mayor Diane Marlin has shut down all citizen access to the services offered at the Urbana City Building, citizens now cannot submit police or human rights complaints.
When questioned by Council Member Bill Brown at the March 16th meeting, Mayor Marlin assured residents that city services, such as in-person access to the Urbana Police window in the City Building, would continue to be available. Less than 4 days later, Marlin flip-flopped and closed down everything.
A citizen who attempted to submit a police complaint on March 27th was turned away by Urbana Police Services attendant Brittany Nunnally. The citizen arrived at the City Building to find all of the doors locked. When he tried to call inside using the service telephone, but he found it was broken. He then called inside using his cell phone and spoke to Nunnally, indicating that he needed to drop off a complaint form. Nunnally refused to allow him access to the police window, or even take the form underneath the locked glass door.
The Urbana Police complaint process has very strict guidelines, and if there is even a slight error in filing protocol, Chief Bryant Seraphin has been known to snub the complaint so it is never processed and is therefore never seen by the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board. The problem is actually worse than just being picky, as we’ve recently learned that Seraphin is selectively denying police complaints which were properly submitted. It seems the Chief, along with City Attorney Fred Stavins, have an endless ‘bag of tricks’ for stuffing complaints.
One of the strict Urbana Police complaint requirements is that complainants must show an ID and have the form notarized by a Police Services attendant, a step normally performed by Nunnally. Without access to the inside of the City Building, this simply isn’t possible. The same limitations will also be applicable to the Urbana Human Rights complaint process.
The result is that during the COVID-19 crisis, citizens have no means for issuing complaints about the actions of Urbana Police Officers. There have already been reports nationwide of police misconduct due to ambiguous stay-at-home orders, and recently there were similar reports about Champaign Police harassing people simply for walking, supposedly in violation of Governor Pritzker’s stay-at-home order. The Governor’s order does give a myriad of exceptions, including walking, running, transportation, and general exercise. Pritzker even encouraged people to enjoy good weather. However, it is easy to imagine how a police officer, ignorant to the details of the stay-at-home order, may apply it in a very simplistic way.
One citizen wrote us in an email:
“Neither Marlin nor Chief Seraphin have given any information to citizens about how the Governor’s sprawling and ambiguous ‘stay-at-home’ order is going to be enforced locally. I think citizens are entitled to know exactly what Urbana Officers are being instructed when it comes to this order. Can we expect to be able to walk down the sidewalk without being harassed? If we leave it to officers to apply this order creatively and selectively, that’s exactly what they’ll do. That doesn’t make me feel safe.”