Establishing a civilian review board can help bridge a perceived divide between police officers and the residents they serve to protect, a former St. Louis police officer said yesterday.

Redditt Hudson spoke to an audience of about 25 people at The Blue Note during a meeting of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He later attended a meeting of the Citizen Oversight Committee, which Mayor Darwin Hindman appointed last year to consider whether there is a need for civilian oversight of the Columbia Police Department.

Police officers sometimes legitimize excessive force or breaking policies because they are "good" and criminals are "bad," Hudson said. Citizens who call for an outside review agency can be unfairly labeled as soft on crime.

"You must be pro-criminal. You must be anti-law," he said. "That is BS"

Hudson, who worked as a St. Louis police officer for five years before becoming a racial justice manager for the ACLU, said police officers’ actions affect the community and, therefore, should be reviewed by the community.

"Most law enforcement people I know ... are good people doing a difficult job," he said.

Hudson said a review board that acts as an "auditor" of the police with a mix of elected and appointed members appears to work the best.

"It’s still a concept that is new enough that I can’t give you a definitive model that works," he said in response to a question from the audience.

Columbia lawyer Dan Viets, general counsel to the ACLU chapter, said Hudson’s speech proved that a civilian review board can benefit police.

"Police officers like Redditt who operate within the rules and make a good-faith effort to follow the rules have nothing to fear of a civilian review board," Viets said.

Chris Egbert, a member of the mayor’s committee and retired Columbia police captain, said he attended Hudson’s speech to help with the "learning process" of serving on the committee. He cautioned that some of Hudson’s experiences might not be true of Columbia police.

"St. Louis is different than Columbia," Egbert said. "What works or doesn’t work in a big city may not work here."

About 15 people attended the meeting of the oversight committee at Oakland Junior High School to comment about the idea of civilian review.

"I think it’s a no-brainer," said John Hill, who has lived in Columbia for more than 30 years. "We should have an oversight committee in a town like this."

Steve Tubbesing said he has had both good and bad encounters with police officers over the years. He told the committee that most of his immediate family members are police officers.

"There’s probably not a police department in the country that wants a citizen review board, but they need to be held accountable," Tubbesing said.

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