The path for Des Moines police is clear: Set up a review board, make data public, act on it

Two independent reports this year have illuminated some of how the Des Moines Police Department does its work. But if you tried to assign a grade for police performance based on the reports, the fairest rating is probably “incomplete.”

That’s because both Public Works and 21CP Solutions made the absence of robust data collection a main takeaway from their investigations. Without better data, we can’t really assess, for instance, whether a concerning proportion of traffic stops involves discriminatory conduct.

The city has already hired employees to remedy this, City Manager Scott Sanders said during a Nov. 20 work session with the City Council to review 21CP’s 76-page report. More hiring is planned, with the aim in the next year or so of setting up online dashboards with timely information.

Those are responsible steps. Council members and police administrators next need to move aggressively on other recommendations in the report. In particular, the council should stop hemming and hawing and construct a board to review police activity and publicly report findings. And the data the police collect must be thoroughly analyzed and used to sharpen department policy and training practices.

The long-awaited completion of these twin reports can and must mark a watershed moment for improving police operations and community relations in Iowa's capital city. Purposeful action will be required of Chief Dana Wingert; Sanders, his supervisor; and Mayor-elect Connie Boesen and the other members of the City Council.

A fair report shows many ways to improve policing

21CP’s experts, which include former police officers, have written reports on numerous American law enforcement agencies. They praised Des Moines police’s overall performance and noted that "the trainings that we observed were thoughtful and well-crafted with attention to modern approaches to technique." The consultants have included harsh judgments in some reports, so this one shouldn’t be dismissed as a rubber stamp.

But it's also true that for years, city residents — and not just a few — have voiced persistent questions about the fairness and equity of law enforcement in Des Moines. Although no single incident pushed the city to hire these consultants, accusations of racial profiling, excessive force and other misconduct have led to an ever-growing string of settlement payouts. Many people arrested during racial justice protests in 2020 were acquitted or had their cases dismissed, supporting a narrative that the police response was overbearing. And critics of the police aren’t the only people to notice “a lack of openness to criticism and resistance to change among DMPD leadership,” according to 21CP’s report — “stakeholders who are often critical of the department and others who are generally supportive made these observations.”

All of those facts reflect problems that can be fixed. Clearer policies and better training can help officers make better choices. Chief Wingert and other administrators can focus energy on rebuilding community relationships. This report does not make a case for leadership changes in the department, instead citing "a consistent and strong leadership team."

In the next year, however, police supervisors must demonstrate they are embracing and leading changes to make the department more transparent and responsive. Otherwise, it will be time for the council to pressure Sanders to consider new leadership.

Better data will mean both tangible and intangible benefits

Hiring to improve data collection and analysis is a justified investment. It also competes with other priorities in an increasingly strained city budget. At the same time, Black Liberation Movement activists and others have questioned the level of police spending. Police employees, in contrast, told 21CP researchers that they feel they’ve been starved of necessary resources.

Any drastic increase or decrease in police funding is unlikely. But spending on data is important because it can produce tangible improvements in efficiency and even savings — and because the transparency could ultimately produce intangible benefits for the department’s reputation.

“We’re not using data to inform what we need to do or where we need to focus,” said Councilman Josh Mandelbaum.

The city has made genuine strides in cooperating with Broadlawns Medical Center on responding to certain calls involving mental health crises without police involvement. The 21CP report notes some ways that initiative can be improved.

Disclosure has to be followed by reform; a community board can push for that

The Police Department has for years been at loggerheads with independent groups and the news media over incident data. The police’s internal systems, whether by happenstance or design, seem ill-suited to easily sharing useful information with external entities. Then police criticize how news stories and other reports characterize scraped-together data but don’t clarify what, exactly, is wrong.

Better disclosure is imperative. “We need to get to the point where we have the staff that are posting this information in real time,” Sanders said. But disclosure has to be followed by reform, if data shows concerning trends in how officers spend their time and interact with residents and visitors.

The City Council can insist on this reform. But an equally important mechanism for advocacy on those matters is a dedicated board that can develop expertise and reach independent conclusions. As the consultants put it, “This approach could help begin to surface community concerns before they occur and productively develop a policy-making partnership.”

Council members need to set the parameters for this community review board and appoint people to serve on it.

Also of critical importance: more transparency when allegations are raised of officer misconduct. The report recommends police leaders "work more intentionally to describe the 'what and why' in each of these incidents — why it occurred, and what actions were taken by the Department in response to any problematic conduct discovered."

These reports were a necessary initial step for the city. Sanders promised quarterly updates on implementing recommendations. Administrators and the City Council now should be driven by achievement. Before the end of 2024, they need to remove remaining obstacles to gathering, analyzing and publishing meaningful data.

Wingert’s leadership can’t be almost entirely behind the scenes, as has been his pattern. He needs to participate in public forums to demonstrate engagement with critics and visibly show he's leading the way in implementing these needed changes.

The report's recommendations should not be viewed as a check-the-box to-do list, but as a generational opportunity for the Des Moines Police Department to become world-class in effective, equitable policing. The report's writers believe the department has that capacity. That's what residents deserve, and city leaders should settle for no less.

— Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the Register’s editorial board

This editorial is the opinion of the Des Moines Register's editorial board: Carol Hunter, executive editor; Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor; and Richard Doak and Rox Laird, editorial board members.

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This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: To improve Des Moines policing, transparent data, review board needed