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<\/a>A group of Red Lodge residents has formed an organization to provide oversight of city government and to protect the civil rights of people in the community.<\/p>\n<\/a>A group of Red Lodge residents has formed an organization to provide oversight of city government and to protect the civil rights of people in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically what we want to do is, we want first and foremost to work with the city administration in keeping our police department professional,\u201d said Michael Keys, one of the organizers of Red Lodge Community Oversight Representatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n The foundation for the group was laid when Keys and a few other people started talking about the recent drug bust in Bearcreek, which was carried out by Red Lodge city police officers.<\/p>\n The raid, which resulted in no charges partly because of the way it was conducted, opened a rift with the Carbon County attorney and sheriff, who accused the police department of fraudulently obtaining a search warrant by claiming it was being sought on behalf of the sheriff\u2019s office. Bearcreek is an incorporated town six miles southeast of Red Lodge.<\/p>\n The raid also led to the filing of a civil lawsuit against the city by a woman who said police officers unlawfully entered her house, separate from and behind the house named in the search warrant, placed her in handcuffs and detained her in the back of a police car before letting her go.<\/p>\n In addition to discussing the Bearcreek raid, Keys said, he and others started hearing \u201ccomplaints from all over town about harassment by the police.\u201d<\/p>\n Keys and six other people looked into various means of getting the community more involved in city government, ultimately forming a group modeled after the Civilian Police Oversight Agency<\/a> in Albuquerque, N.M.<\/p>\n The Red Lodge COR\u00a0held an organizational meeting on Friday and elected Bill Larson as chairman. Other members, besides Keys, are Diane Dimich, Beth Steen, Heather Iselin, Stephanie Naftal and Nate Davis.<\/p>\n Members of the group make no secret of their dissatisfaction with some of the actions taken by Mayor Ed Williams and Police Chief Steve Hibler, but Keys said their larger goal is to work with city officials.<\/p>\n As it says on the COR website: \u201cWe are offering our help to council members to help improve relations between local government and the community in order to dispel rumors, encourage transparency, and answer questions from the public. We\u2019d prefer that one council member become closely involved with COR in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be involved,\u201d Keys said. \u201cWe want to be that buffer between the administration and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n They will also offer to accompany people who want to file a complaint against the police department but would feel intimidated going in alone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe seven of us are well-known and fairly well trusted in the community.\u201d Keys said.<\/p>\n Members of the new group attended a City Council meeting last week and briefly introduced COR to city officials, telling them what their plans were.<\/p>\n The mayor and the police chief told Last Best News they are willing to see what the new organization has to offer, though both said they knew little about it yet.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t had a chance to dig through it and find out what they\u2019re really up to,\u201d Williams said. Asked if the city would be able to work with the group, Williams said, \u201cI\u2019ll take a look and see if it\u2019s something we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Keys gave a specific example of a recent misunderstanding that COR might have been able to deal with easily. There was a persistent rumor that the city had paid $6,000 for a sniper rifle that one of its police officers had been issued.<\/p>\n People raised questions about it at multiple City Council meetings and at a meeting of the Police Commission, but city officials kept denying it had purchased any such weapon. Finally, Hibler did mention that one officer had a .308 long-barrel rifle that had been purchased to put down dangerous animals.<\/p>\n Keys said Hibler appeared to have genuinely misunderstood that someone had mistaken the .308 for a sniper rifle. If COR had been in place, Keys said, \u201cWe could have come in and sat down with the mayor and the chief, figured out what they had and why they had it.\u201d<\/p>\n Another problem, Keys said, is that the Red Lodge Debate Facebook page is a great community forum, it is also a hotbed of rumors, which COR hopes to clear up by working in tandem with city officials.<\/p>\n Another point of dispute had been the lack of notice about meetings of the Police Commission and the commission\u2019s failure to post minutes of its meetings. Keys said last week that he wasn\u2019t getting any cooperation from the city on that subject, but on Sunday he said he was working with City Councilwoman Glory Mahan, who has promised to get minutes posted where the public can access them, and was trying to make sure there is advance notice of all Police Commission meetings.<\/p>\n Steen, meanwhile, has been looking into how people can find out what happened at a closed meeting of the City Council on March 17. State law<\/a> allows public bodies to go into executive session to discuss matters \u201cof individual privacy \u2026 if the presiding officer determines that the demands of individual privacy clearly exceed the merits of public disclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"CapreAir_Variable\"](\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div><\/div>Keys said most people don\u2019t know how cities function, what rules govern city councils or how police departments are organized and operated. For starters, he said, at least one member of COR will be attending all meetings of the City Council, including committee meetings, and meetings of the Red Lodge Police Commission.<\/p>\n