On June 3rd, 2020, the Chair of the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) gave residents good reason to further question his ability to serve in his newly assigned position. When questioned about the board’s decision to stop reviewing all Taser usages, Chair Mikhail Lyubansky gave an incoherent explanation that, at best, demonstrated that he hadn’t actually read the eight page CPRB Ordinance.
The public already had little reason to trust the CPRB members, as it has become painfully clear in recent months that the board had been ignoring its mandate for the past six years or more. The very purpose of the June 3rd City Council meeting was to review those accumulated failures of the CPRB.
One of those failures was the CPRB decision to stop reviewing all Taser usages (article here). The Taser review requirement is written into the same City Code that creates the CPRB. It requires that all Taser usages be reviewed, and the CPRB, as with any board or commission, does not have the power to undo its own ordinance.
During the meeting, Lyubansky claimed that the CPRB Ordinance contains a provision for the board to make the decision to stop reviewing Taser usages:
“My understanding of the ordinance is that it mandated that the CPRB review all displays for a period of one year, and so that that year has expired.”
Lyubansky said that the board made their decision based on this provision of the Ordinance. This is a curious claim, since the board members did not discuss or even make any mention of the CPRB Ordinance when they voted to stop reviewing Taser usages. It is also a nonsensical claim, since the Ordinance contains no such provision. The only part of the ordinance that even remotely matches is Section 19-53:
None of this language suggests that the CPRB can stop reviewing Taser usages. In fact, since the mentioned report was never created, it only demonstrates one more failure of the board.
Council member Eric Jakobsson, who has publicly supported the right of police officers to use violent force against residents, approved of the decision for less Taser review, saying, “to my knowledge, nobody ever got hurt by looking at a Taser”.
Lyubansky also claimed that the CPRB has been meeting quarterly during the four years that he has been on the board, but that is not true. For example, the board did not meet for nine months from October 2018 to July 2019. When asked about future meetings, Lyubansky indicated a hesitation to schedule future meetings in his position as the CPRB Chair, preferring to wait for City staff to handle scheduling meetings for the board.
A completely copy of the CPRB Ordinance, Urbana City Code Section 19-20, can be seen here: City of Urbana City Code, Section 19-20 Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB)