by Aaron Hanson, President

Can you feel it? There is a building pressure growing within certain facets of our community again to reinstate the Auditor. It feels like the year 1999 all over again.

This time around our Omaha city leaders have an opportunity. We can either choose to go the lazy, sloppy, easy route and simply reinstate the current vacant Auditor position – thereby hammering the proverbial square peg into the round hole simply to say we did it – or we can instead choose the more responsible, and albeit more difficult, route of collectively taking a deep breath, leaving our agendas at the door and sitting down to hash this issue out once and for all.

Before too many more people break out the bandwagon again in order to help the "good cops", I want to remind everybody of a few facts surrounding the issue of civilian oversight:

1.  Police officers are not afraid of fair and properly structured oversight. Police officers are afraid of politicized, activist-oriented oversight. If one presents police officers with another activist form of oversight, we will fight it hard, we will fight it long and we will fight it loud. If one presents police officers with a reasonable form of oversight – one that is not subject to politics, activism or personal agendas and is designed with proper checks and balances – it is very likely that police officers would embrace it.

2.  Anti-police activists will never be satisfied by anything that this city does to increase the level of communication and understanding between the police and the community. A quick look at the history of civilian oversight, both locally and around the county, will prove that today’s "solution" to police oversight, is tomorrow’s "toothless system in desperate need to revamping". Our City leaders should be hesitant of catering to the whims of the anti-police crowd because just as soon as you do, they’ll be back even louder, demanding more. Our attention should rather be focused on ensuring that we have the confidence of the reasonably minded silent majority that reside in all portions of our community.

3.  Contrary to some beliefs, advocacy driven civilian oversight doesn’t help build trust in a police department, it actually serves to destroy the trust by more often than not only pointing out the negatives (and by "negative" I don’t necessarily mean "bad"). Is it positive or negative for an officer to punch someone square in the face? Of course, by its very nature such things appear negative, but they are also, at times, very necessary and appropriate. Advocacy driven oversight capitalizes on the "negatives" in order to ensure job security at the expense of the "good cops", and the public’s understanding and trust in their police department.

The last time we, as a city, started down this path, a different City Council decided that

the best way to implement police oversight was by thoroughly jamming it down police officers’ collective throats. We all witnessed the ultimate results of that particular leadership philosophy. Hopefully this time, if our city leaders decide that this issue needs to be readdressed, we will start with a clean slate and work together to identify a solution that all parties can live with.

Meanwhile, despite the existence of an Auditor, the "good cops" in Omaha will continue to work hard every day to do a difficult and dangerous job as they serve and protect the citizens of Omaha.

Stay safe.

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