the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Open Letter

At the same time, release of the documents would go a long way toward increasing public understanding of this tragic incident, and about the roles taken at each step by the public agencies involved. The surveillance videotape of Cotton in his cell is self-explanatory — did the man injure himself? But the booking records — blank copies of which you sent us in response to our request — would also be immensely useful in understanding the incident. The forms require officers to physically assess the person they are booking into jail, so that jail staff may classify the suspect properly. For example, they ask the arresting officer if the suspect had been involved in violent incidents prior to arrest. They ask if a “less lethal” weapon had been used in the arrest. They ask if the suspect has any injuries or obvious illnesses. How did the Eureka Police Department answer those questions, in Cotton’s case? Did they properly book the suspect? The public deserves to know the answers to these questions — which, after all, are asked of officers who act in the public’s name. But if the county maintains its stance on this matter, it is more than likely that the public will never know the answers. And the county should be prepared to accept the blame for that.

If the county still doubts that there are big upsides to releasing these records — and to adopting a more transparent stance generally — we would beg you to take a look at what Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen has been accomplishing in the past few months. All by himself, and against the advice of some, he has created a certain tentative sense of trust in what had been, beyond a doubt, the least trusted agency anywhere in the county.

How has he accomplished this? He has made a few institutional changes, true. This week, the news is that he will ask an outside agency — the state Department of Justice — to investigate all EPD-related deaths and other departmental black eyes, rather than rely on in-county police as has been the case in the past, and as continues to be the case for other local jurisdictions. This is a brave step — there’s nothing in it for Nielsen except the gratitude of local citizens who feel somewhat queasy at the thought of local police investigating each other. But mostly, Nielsen has inspired trust by simply speaking the truth as best he can to the public.

Nielsen has called upon the county to release the videotape of Cotton in his cell. Now, knowing the way county-think operates, there’s a fair-to-middling chance that this was interpreted as a slap at the Sheriff’s Office, the agency that runs the jail. If you have a guy dead of a subdural hematoma and a video of him banging his head on the wall, you’ve got an alibi for your own officers. Blame it on the jail! Why weren’t they checking on him more often? Didn’t they know what was going on?So the thinking would go.

Personally, we believe that Nielsen’s comment was innocent of such crafty political subtext. We believe that Nielsen is what he appears to be. Call us dupes if you wish, but you can’t buy that kind of reputation. And that’s a lesson that county government could stand to learn.

Sincerely,
Hank Sims

1 2 SHARE