Utah cops, whether they work for a city, county, college or school district, and prosecutors should not be able to investigate themselves or those who oversee them, so says a broad-ranging bill introduced Wednesday morning.
Rep. Craig Hall, R-West Valley, says his bill, HB353, is not aimed at any one law enforcement agency, nor one specific incident.
But it certainly would apply to the University of Utah, and its own police force who, it is generally believed, botched the protection of a female student murdered on campus in 2018, and the police department’s own defense of itself — which has been widely criticized as clearing its own officers.
“We need to prevent a clear conflict of interest, or even the appearance of a conflict of interest,” said Hall, who at one time worked as an assistant city attorney.
Lawsuits are still pending over the murder of Lauren McCluskey, who was murdered by an ex-boyfriend in 2018 after reporting threats by him to the campus police. Her parents have filed a $56 million lawsuit against the school.
University of Utah President Ruth Watkins at the time said she would ask an outside investigator to review university police protocols, but the review would not examine the decisions of individual officers.
An independent investigation, ordered by Gov. Gary Herbert, not the University, found the campus cops made numerous errors in the McCluskey incident.
Students have protested on campus, demanded top administrators resign, and the campus police chief later retired — but the controversy continues there.
Hall said while a number of cities in Utah have policies calling for outside, independent investigations of cop wrong-doing, some do not.
“We need a broad policy” like his bill “across the state,” said Hall. “It is just the right thing to do — best policy.”
He gives some examples:
— City, county, college and school district police should not be investigating themselves or their bosses.
— Local prosecutors should not be investigating themselves or their bosses, like the mayor or city council.
— College cops shouldn’t be investigating college administrators who have power over them.
Some larger police departments have “internal affairs” units, whose job it is to investigate possible “crooked” cops on its own department.
Hall said he’s still working with local law enforcement on that issue. “But at the least, when there is any evidence” to IA officers “that a crime has been committed” by one of their fellow cops, the investigation should be turned over to prosecutors’ offices.
When UtahPolicy.com asked Hall if state police, who have their own investigation units, should be able to investigate part-time legislators, he said maybe more thought should be taken, considering the Legislature is a separate branch of government. But the Legislature does set budgets for state police, and the state Senate does get to confirm the executive director of the Department of Public Safety.
When the Utah Attorney General’s Office was requested to prosecute former AGs Mark Shurtleff and John Swallow, it declined, and the ultimately-failed prosecutions were done by two different county attorneys.
It is common practice today that when a police officer fires his gun in the line of duty, a different law enforcement agency investigates the shooting.
The same independent actions should be taken in cases where police investigate themselves or their bosses, says Hall.
