Urbana Police Hide Citizen Complaints, Violate Police Review Ordinance

At the October 23^rd, 2019 meeting of the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB), it was revealed that board members had not been receiving copies of citizen police complaints for the past several years. Apparently, the Urbana Police Department simply stopped issuing copies to the board, and neither City staff nor anyone on the CPRB raised the issue, until now.

Virtually all Urbana Police complaints are submitted to the police services window in the Urbana City Building. This puts the complaint directly in the hands of Urbana Police staff, who deliver it to one of a handful of Lieutenants for investigation. After an investigation that may take up to 2 months, that investigator issues his findings to the Chief, who writes a findings letter to the complainant. At least, that’s how the process is supposed to work (it has been well-documents that citizen complaints will be denied processing for any number of creatives reasons).

Shortly after receipt of a complaint the Urbana Police are supposed to send a copy of the complaint directly to the CPRB. The CPRB Ordinance is very clear on this requirement:

Urbana City Code Sec. 19-28(j): All complaints shall be submitted to the CPRB within seven (7) working days of the filing date.

In other words, the Urbana Police Department has been failing miserably at following the law. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this is that no one seemed to realize it for several years. It wasn’t until CPRB member Ricardo Diaz began asking questions (article here) that this came to light.

The responsibility for this falls squarely on the shoulders of Urbana’s Police Chief, Bryant D Seraphin. Unfortunately for Urbana residents, the new Chief has been entirely underwhelming and lackadaisical in his position, a job for which he showed little interest when was considered in 2019. It remains unclear why Mayor Marlin named Seraphin as Chief.