As Jonah notes below, the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board presented its report about Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske’s interventions into police misconduct cases this morning. The review board oversees the Office of Professional Accountability, which investigates misconduct allegations. The board found that Kerlikowske reversed nearly two dozen OPA decisions in 2003, 2004, and 2005. In not one case did he provide a reason for reversing OPA’s decision, despite a 1999 recommendation, adopted as policy by then-mayor Paul Schell and the City Council, that the police chief provide an explanation “in writing” for overturning OPA rulings. The review process, OPARB chair Peter Holmes told the council, is “completely undermined if you allow the chief to ignore the writing requirement. … If a decision can’t be defended in writing and eventually shown the light of day, I think we should be inherently suspicious.”

The cases described in the report range from run-of-the-mill to shocking. In one case, an officer “attempted to recover nude photos of his sister-in-law” by breaking into her house “to thwart an apparent extramarital affair.” Kerlikowske reduced the charges recommended by the OPA from Misuse of Authority and Violation of Rules/Regulations/Laws to Conduct Unbecoming an Officer. In another instance, an officer claimed that a hit-and-run driver had badly damaged his patrol car; although police staff unanimously concluded that he had lied about the damage, the chief overturned OPA’s ruling against the officer.