V.I.P.D. To Host Public Forums Aimed At Educating Community On Consent Decree

The Virgin Islands Police Department will host public forums territory-wide intended to educate residents on the force’s decade-long federal consent decree, the V.I.P.D. has announced.

The consent decree has been the cause of much distress at the V.I.P.D. Levied against the department in 2008 by the federal government following a case the feds brought against the G.V.I., the decree calls for a myriad of issues to be rectified, guided and aided by an outside monitor that trains officers on a list of paragraphs that make up the consent decree.

According to monitor Palmer Wilson, the consent decree has over 100 paragraphs that have been broken down into sub paragraphs. Of the one hundred, fifty-three pertains to the operations of the police department, or as Mr. Wilson puts it, “about how the police officers do their jobs.” Of the fifty-three paragraphs, two are considered inapplicable to compliance, and of the remaining fifty-one paragraphs, the V.I.P.D. was in compliance with 31 as of July 2016, which was when Mr. Wilson spoke with The Consortium — leaving 20 more paragraphs as of 2016, before the V.I.P.D. could get out of the consent decree.

The V.I.P.D. said the forum will give community members an opportunity to hear from local and federal law enforcement officials on the status of the reform efforts and next steps.

The force said information will be provided about the investigative process on use of force, including racial, ethnic and other disparities in use of force, as well as police accountability systems, including how internal investigations are conducted, how the police department responds to citizen complaints, and how it handles officer discipline.

The first forum will be held on Wednesday in St. Thomas at the West Indian Company, Inc., (WICO) administrative building at 6:00 p.m. In St. John, it will take place at 6:00 p.m. at the legislative building on Thursday, and Friday on St. Croix at the Florence Williams Public Library at 6:00 p.m.