Fort Worth's independent police oversight office wants to make it easier to see complaints
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - The city of Fort Worth continues to try to find solutions to combating crime, especially as the summer months near, a time police said crime typically rises.
To help build better police-community relations there's an office that was created right before the pandemic.
The Office of the Police Oversight Monitor was created back in 2020 as a way to increase transparency and accountability to the police department.
"We really want to be the voice of the community and that's all communities in Fort Worth, particularly our marginalized ones," said Kim Neal, Office of Police Oversight Monitor and Director.
On May 5, Neal talked about how it's going. Neal has been on the job for more than two years, mostly during the pandemic, "And now we're trying to backtrack and talk with all those communities that we talked to virtually and meet them face to face."
On Thursday, the office revealed a new 30-page biennial report on how this office operates with the goal of allowing the public to feel comfortable talking with them about a complaint or suggestion on police matters.
"If they don't feel comfortable about the outcome of an encounter of a police officer that they have our office to act as their face, act as their liaison," added Neal.
The report shows from March 2020 to December 2021, they've received 138 possible complaints along with 16 suggestions among other inquiries into the office.
Sometimes those complaints turn into policy recommendations, there's over dozen of them. According to the report, Fort Worth police are receptive to most of the policy suggestions with a complete or in-progress status.
"We always want to emphasize de-escalation we also want to emphasize intervention. we already have that here in Fort Worth but we want to make sure our policies are best practices," added Neal.
She adds her office works well with the Fort Worth Police Department on these issues as well as city staff.
Now she's looking ways to make it easier for you to see the complaints.
"We want to create a dashboard, try to create something in real time on our website where community members and our city leaders will know exactly how many complaints we're receiving in real time, what those allegations look like," added Neal.
Thursday's meeting started at 6:30 p.m. at Fort Worth City Hall.
There's another meeting Monday May 9th at 6:30 p.m. at the Como Community Center.