> people on the citizen review board don't know what it means to police

If regular people are hearing what an officer is doing and need to be explained by a former cop, "yeah, <horrific behavior> is just part of the job" then what is even the point of having a citizen review? Isn't that the very class of behavior the board exists to stop?

I don't know, I don't want want to be too political here. But there were people saying out loud that it would be better to have no police at all a few years back. Not sure how common this position is nowadays. But that shows that it is easily possible for people to come to unrealistic conclusions if they don't have a real dialog.

In Louisiana, the literal parish (county) level government used to be called "police jury" (and still is in some more rural parishes)

The article I read pointed out that ther used to be a report on the FDLE website, done by a LEO, that came to the conclusion that the Citizen Review boards had generally good feedback by the LEOs they were reviewing and from the communities. Of course, that report has apparently been scrubbed from the FDLE site now.