Inglewood is supposed to have a citizen police oversight commission. It hasn’t met in nearly 9 years

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names. 

This may be a violation of the city’s own code, one expert told The LA Local.

The commission didn’t do much in the first 15 years that it did meet, multiple sources told The LA Local, after the city stripped its investigative authority in its early days. The commission hasn’t met at all since 2017, when meeting minutes recorded Lee Denmon, the commission’s chair, optimistically pitching a shift to a public safety focus.

“We didn’t have any teeth,” Denmon told The LA Local in April. “This commission was formed to fail.” 

Even with limited power, police commissions are one of only a few venues where community members can bring grievances against a local police force. An active oversight commission can serve a range of roles, from hiring police chiefs to recommending disciplinary actions against officers. It’s this type of accountability and transparency that activists and family members of Bryan Bostic, who died in Inglewood police custody, have been calling for since his death on March 10.

Every one of the Inglewood commission’s monthly meetings was canceled between late 2017 and 2022, according to city records. Since then, the city hasn’t even bothered to post a notice of cancellation. 

“It just kind of fizzled out,” Denmon said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts told The LA Local the city no longer has a police commission and that it doesn’t have any members. 

“It was toothless. It had no subpoena power,” said Butts, the former Santa Monica police chief. “If you want to have a good police department, you have a good police chief and, if possible, you have members of the council that have police management experience. That’s the best police oversight that you can have.”

Inglewood code uses mandatory language for its police commission, expert says 

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Civil rights attorney Peter Bibring said the city may be violating its own code, which calls for the Inglewood police chief to report use-of-force investigation results to an 11-member body.

“The ordinance used mandatory language,” said Bibring, who formerly led the American Civil Liberties Union of California’s work on policing, then spent two years with the Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General. 

“The city can’t just stop following the requirements of the municipal code because they don’t think it’s important anymore,” he said.

Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta and Interim City Attorney Rick Olivarez did not respond to a series of interview requests from The LA Local. 

The city’s website still lists commissioners for each of its four council districts: Carol Willis in District 1, David P. Stewart in District 2, Adrianne Sears and Matthew Chinichian in District 3 and Councilwoman Dionne Faulk in District 4. The LA Local attempted to reach out to Chinichian, Stewart, Sears and Faulk but did not receive a response, and did not find contact information for Willis.

Councilmembers Gloria Gray, Eloy Morales and Alex Padilla did not return requests for comment. Padilla is a former police officer and police use-of-force investigator. 

Inglewood’s city code does not give its police commissioners the same tools as others, such as the city of Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, who are responsible for setting policy and hiring top officers. 

But Bibring said even limited oversight commissions can be effective. They provide a forum for members of the public to raise concerns with police actions and for police to report the results of misconduct inquiries, he said.

“Commissions don’t necessarily need power to hire and fire to provide some measure of transparency that can be really meaningful,” Bibring said. “They provide an important window into what the department is doing.”

Police commission issues in Inglewood go back more than a decade

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Inglewood officials first considered an ordinance to form a police oversight commission in 2002, according to city records. The first version of the commission had power to investigate complaints against the department with help from an independent police misconduct investigator appointed by the city. 

But two years later, after pushback from the city’s police unions surfaced legal concerns, records indicate the city killed the commission’s investigatory power.

Daniel Tabor was an Inglewood councilmember in 2008 when Inglewood police fatally shot four different people in the space of just a few months. But Tabor — today the vice president of the LA Board of Police Commissioners —  said he doesn’t recall Inglewood’s commission doing much. 

“It doesn’t have the same level of authority or responsibility or resources that we have in Los Angeles,” Tabor said. 

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe in the wake of those shootings and found flaws in Inglewood’s police oversight. Commissioners told the LA Times in 2009 they felt frustrated and powerless. 

Controversy continued to simmer for the next 15 years. The commission was already canceling many meetings in 2016 when police fatally shot Kisha Michael and Marquintan Sandlin. The city later fired the officers involved in that shooting.

Inglewood purged a batch of police records in 2018, days before a state transparency law took effect, and remains locked in a years-long court battle with the ACLU over the release of other police records. A judge ordered the city last winter to post police misconduct records online. 

The Inglewood Police Department has been under fresh scrutiny after Bostic’s still-unexplained death in Inglewood police custody in March. Beyond the department’s own investigation, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is investigating the police use of force, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office is still looking into Bostic’s cause of death.

Activist Najee Ali said he believes the city would have “without question” been more transparent if it had an active police oversight commission. 

But Denmon, the former commission chair, said the commission would only have made a difference if it had more power.

“The only way it works is if someone is going to make (police) cooperate with the commission,” Denmon said.

LAist and The Los Angeles Sentinel contributed to this report.