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The
Cincinnati Enquirer
Profiling settlement approved
Judge's action launches extensive police reforms
By Robert Anglen , August 6, 2002
A federal judge approved Cincinnati's racial profiling settlement
on Monday, marking the beginning of a five-year effort to reform
the police department and make residents accountable for reducing
crime in their neighborhoods.
U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott called the agreement among the city,
the U.S. Department of Justice, the police union and plaintiffs
a precise tool that will help eliminate discriminatory policing.
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"A constitutional command prohibiting
the use of race in routine policing is at best a very blunt tool
with which to bludgeon the problems," Judge Dlott wrote in her 16-page
ruling. "The collaborative agreement, in contrast, is more like
a surgical instrument, designed by persons who intimately know the
specific circumstances of Cincinnati," she wrote.
The settlement, reached April 3, ends the racial-profiling lawsuit
filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cincinnati Black
United Front, which accused police of harassing and targeting African-Americans
for decades. The city has already signed a separate deal with the
Justice Department to end a federal patterns and practices civil
rights investigation of the police department launched after the
April 2001 riots.
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| KEY DEVELOPMENTS |
| o Landmark agreements
for sweeping changes in Cincinnati police now approved by
both Justice Department and a federal judge. o Settles racial
profiling lawsuit alleging decades of discrimination against
blacks. o Sets in motion deadlines for founding a community
advisory group, training citizens and evaluating agreement
goals. o Next big step: Hiring a monitor. |
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The combined agreements provide
sweeping changes in police procedures, including use of force, citizen
complaints and calls involving the mentally ill. They also establish
an independent monitor to oversee those new procedures and a new
community policing effort that the ACLU and the Black United Front
must now put into operation. "To me, this is an important milestone
in the history of the city. It was anticipated, but it represents
a lot of hard work on the part of both sides," Mayor Charlie Luken
said Monday. "There remains a great deal of distrust on both side
on a personal level."
In a continuing analysis of the police department, The Cincinnati
Enquirer has found that the police system for tracking problem officers
is faulty and unable to do its job, that disciplines against police
officers are often overturned and that the most severe punishments
are the least likely to stick.
The paper also found that the majority of officers who are suspended
and terminated are black, that citizen complaints are dismissed
with very little review and that hundreds of complaints weren't
being forwarded to a citizens review panel as required by city policy.
A review of complaints filed to the city's only independent police
investigative agency also revealed that police confirmed pulling
their weapons at least 39 times during traffic stops and interrogations,
and that all but one case involved black residents.
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The judge's approval comes as
a year-old boycott of the city over economic and social inequities
continues to drive away conventions and tourists. Juleana Frierson,
Black United Front chief of staff, agrees that the settlement won't
be easy - and she is still very critical of the police administration.
"It is going to be a slow process, but we truly believe
this is the best racial profiling settlement in the country," she
said. "This is going to require a lot of lot work, but we are up
to the challenge." Judge Dlott was expected to sign the agreement
in June but delayed until Monday because of a conflict over attorneys
fees owed to lawyers who filed the racial profiling lawsuit. She
declined to comment, referring all questions to her ruling.
Cincinnati officials, including Mayor Luken, vowed not to use one
dime of taxpayer money for the plaintiff's lawyers when the agreement
was reached. But last month they agreed to turn over $375,000 they
have raised in money from private donors and to help raise an additional
$225,000 by February. City officials refuse to divulge who provided
that private money. Despite the two-month delay, plaintiffs and
city officials say they continued working as if the agreement was
already in place.
"We didn't want to wait," said S. Gregory
Baker, the city's executive manager of police relations. "I think
the one thing that is telling is that while we were in the state
of uncertainty, the mayor, the city manager and the police chief
felt so strongly about the agreement that they wanted to implement
it without the judge's signature."
The agreement is underscored by a series of reform deadlines that
will be overseen by the monitor, whose hiring by early September
is one of the next big steps that the city must take. Mr. Luken
promised that he would hold the administration accountable for meeting
deadlines and that the process would be open "every step" of the
way. "People had to hang in there to get this done. There was a
dozen times this could have fallen off the tracks and exploded,"
he said.
Lawyers who helped negotiate the settlement say the judge's decision
Monday is gratifying, but it is only the beginning of another, even
longer process. "This was a joint effort," said Billy Martin, a
high-profile Washington lawyer hired by the city. "All of the parties
are hoping this will be an unprecedented opportunity to make vast
improvements in police-community relations and in the effort to
reduce crime."
Plaintiffs' lawyers agree. They admit that there is no guarantee
the city will raise all of the $600,000 owed to them, but said they
didn't want that to stand in the way of the agreement. "This clears
the air, removes the doubt and gets us under way," plaintiffs' lawyer
Al Gerhardstein said. "One of the things that is so good about (the
collaborative) is that it is outcome driven."
Cincinnati lawyer Ken Lawson, who represented the Black United Front
during settlement negotiations, says the agreement is a good mechanism
to help the community, but it is going to take cooperation and commitment
from all sides. The settlement process included an unprecedented
effort to gather solutions to racial problems from thousands of
Cincinnatians through online and street surveys and dozens of community
meetings.
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| TIMELINE |
| o April 30, 1999 - Bomani Tyehimba,
an African-American man from Cincinnati, files a federal lawsuit
claiming police discriminated against him because of the color
of his skin. o March 14, 2001 - The American Civil Liberties
Union and local African-American activists join Mr. Tyehimba's
lawsuit, accusing police of racial profiling and claiming
that officers in Cincinnati have discriminated against blacks
for decades. o April 7 - Cincinnati Police Officer Stephen
Roach shoots and kills Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old man he
was chasing through the streets of Over-the-Rhine. Mr. Thomas,
who was unarmed, was wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants, most
of them traffic offenses. He was the 15th African-American
to die in confrontations with Cincinnati Police since 1995.
o April 9-13 - Protests over the death of Mr. Thomas turn
violent. Soon after the riots, Mayor Charlie Luken asks the
U.S. Department of Justice to consider a civil rights investigation
of Cincinnati's police department. o May 3 - U.S. District
Judge Susan Dlott approves a "collaborative procedure" for
resolving the racial profiling lawsuit. The process calls
for the city and the plaintiffs to work toward a negotiated
settlement. o May 22 - Lawyers from the Justice Department
arrive from Washington to start the civil rights investigation.
o April 3, 2002 - After days of intense negotiations, the
city, the African-American plaintiffs and the Fraternal Order
of Police reach a settlement that could resolve the racial
profiling lawsuit without a trial. Under terms of the settlement,
a monitor would be appointed to oversee sweeping changes in
the Cincinnati Police Department. Those changes include new
rules for the use of force, and changes in the way police
track officer misconduct. o June 6 - Judge Dlott oversees
a "fairness hearing" to determine whether the settlement is
a fair resolution of the dispute. o Monday - The judge approves
the settlement. |
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"The question is: Are you going to complain
about it, or are you going to get up and do something about it?"
he said. "It's a very historic agreement, and now it's up to us
to make it work." ACLU lawyer Scott Greenwood called the agreement
historic and binding.
"This gives us, for the first time
in Cincinnati or anywhere else in the country, a binding agreement
so the community and the rank-and-file police officers can work
together to fundamentally change policing in this community," he
said. "All of the parties have to live up to their obligations."
And that means residents and police must work together to solve
some of the problems that now divide them, Mr. Greenwood said.
The key, he said, is active participation in the Community Oriented
Policing program, which is supposed to bring police and residents
together to identify and solve problems. The goal is to teach residents
more about how to report complaints or compliments about officers,
and how to help police work more effectively in their community,
Mr. Greenwood said. Police, in turn, will get more first-hand information
from residents about their concerns, and about what they believe
the priorities of police should be. "This is as much for the police
as it is for the community," said Steve Sunderland, spokesman for
Citizens United for a Just Settlement. "We have now agreed to be
partners with the police in solving crime in the community." Mr.
Sunderland's group, which has met regularly since the agreement
was made, wants to help lay the foundation for the new community
policing program. It is supposed to identify, track and resolve
problems in the community such as repeat victims, offenders and
locations. |
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