(Washington, D.C.) – The executive director of the District of Columbia’s Office of Police Complaints (OPC), Philip K. Eure, yesterday received the 2013 Flame Award from the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) during the association’s 19th Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The award is NACOLE’s highest honor.
Established in 2001, the award recognizes significant and lasting contributions to the field of citizen oversight of the police. Honorees have also demonstrated a commitment to the goals and values of NACOLE.
In 2000, Eure was appointed to restart citizen oversight in Washington, D.C., becoming OPC’s first executive director. Since that time, he has established the city agency as a national leader in the field of independent police review. Eure has also been involved with NACOLE for several years, serving as the president and also as a member of its board of directors. In each of these roles, he has increased public awareness of police oversight and provided assistance to other jurisdictions working to establish or improve police accountability mechanisms that are independent of law enforcement agencies.
According to NACOLE, “Mr. Eure’s dedication to civilian oversight has been felt not just in Washington, D.C., where he continues to lead the agency he helped found, but also in NACOLE and communities across the United States in which he has helped develop independent review of the police. He has built one of the most effective police oversight offices in the nation.”
NACOLE is a not-for-profit association of law enforcement oversight agencies and professionals working to establish or improve the oversight of police officers in the United States and abroad.
To learn more about OPC, visit www.policecomplaints.dc.gov. For more information about NACOLE, visit www.nacole.org. To view NACOLE’s news release on the recognition of OPC’s executive director, visit http://nacole.org/wp-content/uploads/july-19-press.pdf.