GOOD COP, BAD COP

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What constitutes effective oversight of that service remains a big question. As a means for exposing and punishing police misconduct, civilian review boards have a mixed reputation. Many have no subpoena power and meager investigative staff, which leaves them powerless to get to the bottom of cases. While the New York board is supposed to be made up entirely of civilians, a majority of its members are former law-enforcement officials, prosecutors and lawyers. "What is needed is an independent board of civilians who are trained in investigating complaints," says N.Y.C.L.U. head Siegel.

In May, a voter referendum approved just that kind of arrangement for Pittsburgh, Pa., but not before a prolonged local struggle, federal intervention and one highly publicized death nearby. Critics of the department say that by the late 1980s, police were out of control. "They were taking people off the street with absolutely no due process and throwing them in jail," says A.C.L.U. attorney Timothy O'Brien. At the same time, virtually every complaint that came before the department's internal-affairs division was dismissed.

Matters came to a head two years ago with the killing of Jonny Gammage, a cousin of Ray Seals, then star defensive end of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Gammage, 31, was driving Seals' Jaguar through a mostly white suburban neighborhood when he was stopped by police, ostensibly for driving erratically. After an officer knocked a cellular phone from Gammage's hand--he later claimed he thought it was a gun--officers pinned Gammage face down on the pavement. He later died of suffocation. Only three of the five suburban officers present went to trial. One was acquitted of involuntary homicide by an all-white jury. The case against the other two resulted in a mistrial.

Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Justice entered into a consent decree with the city of Pittsburgh in which the police department agreed to a litany of new procedures, including strict documentation of the use of force, extensive new training and the appointment of an outside auditor with access to police disciplinary records. The new Citizen Police Review Board will have the power to conduct its own investigations and subpoena witnesses.

Several police departments, including New York's, have also begun trying to identify problem officers early. That has been an important reform in New Orleans, where the police department has come a long way from October 1994, when Officer Len Davis ordered a lethal hit on citizen Kim Groves for filing a brutality complaint against him. On the same day Groves was killed, Richard Pennington was sworn in across town as the new superintendent of police. With the city's reputation in free fall, Pennington moved quickly to replace the department's discredited internal-affairs division with a more independent public-integrity division and to ban controversial restraining tactics such as choke holds and hog-tying.

Pennington also established an early-warning system that flags the records of cops who have drawn more than one complaint. Those officers get 40 hours of training in everything from their choice of words when making an arrest to the correct way to secure handcuffs. Says Pennington: "We jump on the problem and address it immediately."