Could Police Reform In Cincinnati Provide Model For Ferguson?
Police reform will take a long time – many years, not many months.
A Justice Department investigation, such as the one underway in Ferguson, is necessary but not sufficient to bring about lasting reform. The Justice Department goes away after five years.
An enforceable court order will be necessary to make sure changes are implemented in the long term. A new policing strategy is also needed to bring the police and community together.
The reforms should include transparency when police shoot civilians, an early warning system to identify troubled officers, new policies minimizing use of force, a civilian review board and video and audio on police cars and officers.
Here’s the story of the reformers in Cincinnati.
Iris Roley burst into tears when a federal monitor told her a decade ago that it would take more than 10 years to transform the relationship between the black community and the Cincinnati police.
Roley, a leader of Cincinnati’s Black United Front, wanted action right away. She felt so alienated that when people asked where she lived she refused to say Cincinnati. “I didn’t feel included,” she said.
Police had killed 15 young black men in the six years leading up to the 2001 shooting death of Timothy Thomas. The ACLU had filed a class action suit alleging that the police had violated the civil rights of 14 young black men by shooting them, profiling them and illegally stopping and searching them.
Then came Thomas' killing, which ignited four days of riots and led to a costly economic boycott of businesses and tourism. Protesters demanded the prosecution of the officer who had shot Thomas, but he was acquitted of a minor charge.
“We were bleeding as a community,” recalled Beth Benson, vice president of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.
Reform did take a decade and more. But it has taken root. Deadly force incidents are way down and the police and the community have a working relationship.
Roley is friends with the head of the police union who once opposed the reform. She serves on a committee that oversees police matters. And she proselytizes nationally in favor of police reform, partnering with her old foe, former Police Chief Streicher.
One of the first calls she received after the Ferguson shooting was from Streicher offering to help – even though Streicher recently quipped that in 2001 Roley “wouldn’t have spit on me if I was on fire."
Roley has made multiple trips to Ferguson in the past two months. She carries with her the collaborative agreement that lays out the blueprint for reform. And she tells protest leaders the same thing she didn’t want to hear.
Has the black community come to trust the Cincinnati police?
Today, when someone asks Iris Roley where she’s from, she says Cincinnati.
The changes in Cincinnati are not just cosmetic or limited to improved interpersonal relationships. Concrete changes have led to a significant drop in the use of deadly force and to the creation of a policing strategy that binds the community to the police.
The use of force by the Cincinnati police department has decreased to 22 incidents in 2013 from 145 incidents in 2002 when the collaborative agreement was implemented.
Court-enforced agreement – Alphonse Gerhardstein, an ACLU lawyer, says the most important element of reform is a court-enforceable order requiring action. A five-year Justice Department intervention is not enough.
Early warning system – Police track officers who receive lots of complaints or repeatedly violate policies. Every quarter commanders work out plans to improve performance or remove the officers whose weaknesses are identified.
Problem-oriented policing – Many of the reformers say that shifting the overall policing strategy to problem-centered policing is the most important factor in changing police-community relations. The strategy puts the police and community leaders together to figure out specific crime problems instead of just reacting to the police radio.
Mental health response team -- The team is specially trained to deal with cases involving citizens with mental problems.
Force policies – New policies on the use of force and foot chases emphasize using as little force as possible and taking more time with a difficult situation. Tasers were introduced to reduce injuries and deaths. There were three tasings in 2002, 597 by 2004 and 222 last year.
Success in Cincinnati was not predestined. The city council voted narrowly, 5-4, to mediate the lawsuit filed by Gerhardstein rather than fight it. Cranley recalled it as a tough vote but a correct one.
At first, the commanders and the rank-and-file pushed back. Streicher threw the court monitor, Rana Sampson, out of police headquarters when she demanded information. That’s when U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott stepped in on behalf of the monitor.
One of those who thought negotiating was admitting guilt was Kathy Harrell, now head of the Fraternal Order of Police. When the collaborative agreement was presented to the police union, she voted no.
“I looked at it as a personal attack on me as being racist and saying it was racially profiling and that was not how I policed. I thought a yes vote was agreeing to that,” she said.
She’s changed her mind. The changes turned out to be good for the police.
Lt. Maris M. Herold runs the 4th District where she specializes in problem-oriented policing.
To illustrate, she points to cleaning up an apartment complex at 3522 Reading where there had been a rash of shootings, including the murder of a 14-year-old girl.
Most of the violence was traceable to the men connected to three or four women who were staying in the apartment complex.
Herold says she partnered with residents to disentangle the problems. She also brought in an array of social services as well as the city's chronic nuisance attorney to pressure the landlord for changes.
“We changed the landscaping, put some new fencing up and a place for kids to play and most importantly they provided two security people who monitor the hallways. They are not armed but extra eyes and ears.
“You start getting really good intelligence. You get info that it is Apt. 3 where all the drugs are coming out and the guys are hanging out. Out of 45 units, it came down to three who are connected to the guys who are violent. Once you do get the building stable, it empowers the women and this is often overlooked.
It took 90 days to turn things around, said Herold. Since then the building has had only one violent incident.
The chief says the department has one of the lowest use of force ratings in the country and he touts community programs such as the Chief’s Basketball Program for youths, Shop with a Cop and a recent volunteer cleanup of a homeless camp.
A few hours after talking to a reporter, Blackwell and Davis are at an evening presentation at Frederick Douglass School on the ABC’s of the CPD (Cincinnati Police Department).
Davis goes through a number of street scenarios to give residents an idea of what to expect. An audience of about 40, including rapt elementary school children, sees video of a violent traffic stop that ends in a shooting.
One street scenario involves a stop of a motorist claiming the police are only stopping him because he is a black man with a white woman. The police advice is that even if angry, make sure you stay in the car unless told to get out and keep you hands where they can be seen.
One other important ingredient of reform in Cincinnati has been the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, which has funded an array of education and economic programs in addition to a police academy.
Kathy Merchant, the president, said that the business community didn’t like the boycott that followed the Thomas shooting, but she realizes today that it helped prod the city toward reform.
The biggest businesses – Macy’s, Toyota, Cincinnati Bell, Procter & Gamble, E.W. Scripps – joined with the philanthropic community to form Better Together Cincinnati.
The Cincinnati Foundation was a leader in efforts to create the Community Police Partnering Center to teach problem-oriented policing, the Minority Business Accelerator to grow minority businesses and early education initiatives.
The biggest successes have been in education. “We start with the babies and have a 'Success at 6' program. Our poverty rate is higher than the U.S. and growing faster, but in education we are seeing some progress … from small to medium degrees.” Kindergarten readiness has increased to 57 percent from 42 percent.
Merchant has heard from the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation seeking pointers for Ferguson. The St. Louis group is much smaller and more focused on asset development than community leadership, he says.
“There does not seem to be tradition of collaboration in St. Louis," she added.
Police reform experts from Cincinnati have noticed that Ferguson lacks, so far, elements that were essential to negotiating a successful agreement.
There is no consensus on who should come to the table to negotiate an agreement. Many protest groups have sprung up in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown; in Cincinnati the United Front was the identifiable group that could negotiate.
Nor is there yet a ready vehicle for an order enforceable by the court.
The Justice Department’s pattern or practice investigation in Ferguson could lead to an enforceable agreement, Gerhardstein says. Cincinnati had a similar Justice Department investigation. But more is needed – active judicial oversight over a period of years.
Eck agreed that a federal pattern or practice suit by the Justice Department is not enough.
“In some sense the Justice Department’s approach is not different from U.S. military intervention abroad. Eventually they are going to leave. And then things go back the way they were” unless there is an enforceable agreement still in place.
Under the cover of a large umbrella, Shiron Hagens trudges through a Jennings shopping center parking lot that borders Ferguson. She stops just outside a store. Hagens is not here to shop, but to register voters.
Following the death of Michael Brown many people joined marches and protest. Hagens started registering.
The anti-violence initiative Stop the Killing has been wildly popular among street demonstrations in Ferguson since the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer on August 9.
The campaign’s simple message with a design of purple hands held aloft, hearts on each palm, has seemed almost tailor-made to fit the protests of Ferguson's most popular chant “hands up, don’t shoot!” The chant stems from witness accounts that Brown’s hands were up when he was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson last month.