Bloomington’s commission on police accountability plans to work through recommendations for changing its purview.
At its first meeting of the year Wednesday, the city’s Public Safety and Community Relations Board [PSCRB] formed a subcommittee charged with reviewing a report by the victims’ rights group Care for Victims. A separate subcommittee will work on planning presentation topics aimed at increasing community engagement.
“What’s our focus for 2026? It’s probably going to look a bit different this year,” said chair Rachel McFarland.
The board has struggled to draw public participation, with its strongest attendance drawn for discussions on pertinent issues involving police, such as the 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey by a Sangamon County deputy.
The board unanimously approved the formation of a subcommittee to select topics for each quarterly meeting, which take place in the evenings and offer opportunities for open discussion with the public. Board member Ashley Farmer and youth member Yvett Hernandez will serve on that subcommittee.
An idea floated last year to consolidate the board from monthly to quarterly meetings only is now off the table, but the PSCRB is considering a time change, moving all meetings to the evening hours.
Care for Victims report
On Wednesday, the PSCRB also took steps to act on recommendations Care for Victims presented to the body last October. Members unanimously voted to form a two-person subcommittee to review Care for Victims’ report and consult with the organization and other stakeholders to propose changes to the board's operations and function.
PSCRB members Art Taylor and Sean Murphy volunteered.
“It’s not something that can be rushed through,” Taylor said. “It was thoughtful enough to put it together. And two, it would be disingenuous of us to rush through a review of it not to give it the consideration that it is due. It’s not something we can do in a meeting or two.”
McFarland said part of the process can include questioning the PSCRB’s current bylaws, which is limited in scope.
Bloomington Police Department complaints are first processed by internal affairs, with certain officers dedicated to investigating misconduct claims. Assistant Police Chief Chad Wamsley said BPD received 30 complaints in 2025, including two forwarded to Illinois State Police. That tracks with the average over the last 8-10 years, Wamsley said.
The PSCRB heard one complaint escalated from the internal review, which took months to resolve. Wamsley said a new complaint for the PSCRB has been filed; McFarland urged members to be ready to rule on it at February's meeting.
But Care for Victims is pushing for further, faster changes, with advocates reading victim impact statements to the Bloomington City Council during the public comment period of a non-voting meeting Jan. 20.
Council member Abby Scott said she’s glad people felt comfortable speaking during public comment.
“That’s exactly what it’s there for,” Scott said. “Justice, in itself, is hard. It is extremely complicated. There are a lot of moving parts. And if you don’t live and breathe it, it is hard to navigate. Certainly, anything we can do to make it easier to navigate, on the worst days of their lives, then absolutely.”
Scott said she'd like to see barriers lowered so people would feel more comfortable talking directly to council members, instead of feeling they need to share their stories anonymously. That would allow them to direct folks to resources that could help them navigate the justice system. Endicott said victims’ experiences were collected through an anonymous form on their website.
Scott said city officials have met with Care for Victims on multiple occasions and made several changes in response to the group’s recommendations.
Scott said it is time to "take some temperatures" in the PSCRB and police department to ensure they're achieving their goals.
Co-organizer Amy Endicott said Care for Victims also met with Town of Normal officials and both municipalities have made steps to provide “much more robust” access to victims’ rights information. Unlike Bloomington, Normal does not have a citizen-led commission reviewing police policy and procedures. Endicott said the structures already in place in Bloomington are one reason they’re currently focusing on it.
Several of the shared stories touched on lack of communication and sensitivity from multiple touchpoints within the system, including the State’s Attorney’s Office and court system, which aren’t under City of Bloomington control.
Endicott said a longer-term goal is to see intergovernmental agreements coordinating agencies across the justice system and beefier investigatory power for the PSCRB.
“That’s something I think we really want to raise awareness around, especially as we see things playing out on the national stage—and how we see the lack of accountability there,” Endicott said. “People need to be aware that at the local level, the same lack of accountability exists here as well.”
Whether or not either is legally or practically possible remains an open question. What Care for Victims doesn’t yet know is how to measure whether changes are having a measurable effect.
“That is a great question, and it’s probably a little bit beyond the scope of what we’re able to track and report on currently,” she said.
At a minimum, what Care for Victims wants, Endicott said, is feedback about whether its recommendations are possible, on what timeline and if not, an explanation why.
