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Syracuse University’s Community Review Board announced the board is in talks to start a potential collaboration with Syracuse’s Citizen Review Board, members revealed during the board’s second annual spring open forum on Wednesday evening.

SU’s Community Review Board, a group of 11 selected SU community members who independently oversee SU’s Department of Public Safety, formed after former-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch released her February 2021 report of independent counsel on the department. The report, which outlined recommendations for standard operating procedures and safety operations for DPS, identified an erosion of trust between DPS and the campus community.

The group hosted its first open forum in April 2022 and continued the event this year with the goal of creating a safe space for SU students, faculty and staff to communicate with board members on how the group can advocate for improvements for the campus community, said Brianna Sclafani, a third-year law student and member of the board.

The city of Syracuse’s review board, the establishment of which was signed into law in 2011, created a citizen-controlled process to review grievances against members of the Syracuse Police Department.

The board functions to review complaints and recommend action against alleged misconduct by SPD officers, including damages to property, violations of citizens’ constitutional rights and other acts of misconduct by police.

In the discussion surrounding the SU review board’s potential collaboration with the city’s board, supporters of a connection between the two groups pointed to the Syracuse city board’s longer history of working through issues related to police accountability, saying the university’s board will have to face the same issues at some point, too, and could benefit from knowledge acquired from supervising SPD.

Sclafani also said at the meeting that SU’s board has reviewed and offered recommendations for two proposals submitted by DPS, one of which would prohibit DPS officers from arresting SU community members in any academic setting unless in certain outlined circumstances, including if a suspect is believed to be armed with a weapon or makes threats of violence to themselves or others.

The proposals, which the board heard at its Feb. 1 meeting, come after DPS officers arrested an SU student inside the Martin J. Whitman School of Management in February 2022.

The board plans to send an email to the campus community with information on how to apply for a position for the 2023-2024 academic year, Sclafani said. The 2022-2023 Community Review Board is currently composed of three undergraduate students, two faculty members, two administrators, two staff members, one graduate student and one law student. Positions for the CRB are available to all SU students, faculty, staff and administrators.

Applications to join the board are due March 31, and applicants will be notified of a decision by April 14.

Published on March 23, 2023 at 1:22 am

Contact Dominic: dcchiapp@syr.edu | @DominicChiappo2