The deadly, police involved shooting of a State College man, more than 3 years ago continues to reverberate in that community.
One of the initiatives that emerged provides residents with a new way to interact with the State College Police Department.
In many communities, if you have a complaint about your police department, you give them a call or register it directly with them. In State College, a new option emerging the Community Oversight Board.
In the past few months the board has been focused specifically on that issue a process for so called civilians to file police complaints
“Another way for people to register any complaints they have with the State College Police Department. typically you go right to the department, people who don’t want to do that have this process.then we will follow up with them to see how they would like to proceed”
The oversight board is not involved with funding or protests involving the State College Police, nor are they authorized to do their own independent investigations. Now, they want to hear from the public feedback on the police complaint process they’ve developed
“So people are very receptive to the idea. I think it was one of the things people imagined.a community oversight board which was the result of community pressure.so i think people are excited about the process.
public input is absolutely critical if we don’t have that,then we don’t know if we’ll create a process people will actually use”
The State College community oversight board will hold another public meeting next Wednesday, October 26th, at the borough building, beginning at 7 in the evening.