CINCINNATI -The mayor asked the federal government to end its supervision of Cincinnati police about 2 1/2 years early, saying the department has met goals to reduce use of force and promote police integrity.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which pressed for the federal supervision after three days of race riots in 2001, says it is too soon to end the oversight.
It's not just premature
it's also counterproductive ACLU lawyer Scott Greenwood said yesterday. Part of the focus is on reforming the police department and building police-community relationships. That can't happen if the city only gives lip service to the idea of reform.
The Justice Department will review Mayor Charlie Luken's letter requesting the end of the oversight when it is received, department spokesman Eric Holland said.
Holland declined to respond to criticisms by Luken and the Cincinnati police union's president, Sgt. Harry Roberts, that the Justice Department is nitpicking by requiring extra written or taped reports from police supervisors.
Luken asked the Justice Department to examine Cincinnati police operations after the rioting that occurred when a white police officer shot to death an unarmed black man who ran from police and was wanted on misdemeanor charges. The officer was cleared of charges at trial.
Luken and Attorney General John Ashcroft signed an agreement in 2002 requiring the Justice Department to spend five years overseeing officers' conduct and their use of force and police dogs. The department also manages the investigation of citizen complaints against police.
The city simultaneously signed an agreement with the ACLU and black activists to settle a lawsuit accusing the police of 30 years of harassing black people. The police union denied those allegations but signed that document, which incorporated the terms of the city's agreement with the Justice Department.
The police have made substantial progress and the city should now be free to continue the work without federal oversight, Luken wrote in his letter Tuesday to Ashcroft.
The police department has aggressively pursued the stated goals of the agreement Luken wrote.
Cincinnati police now have stun guns as a non-lethal option when force must be used. That has helped reduce the use of physical force, chemical spray and shotgun-fired beanbag rounds and lowered the number of injuries to police and suspects, Luken and the police union say.
The number of times police dogs have bitten suspects is within Justice Department-established guidelines, Luken wrote. And police received 2 percent fewer complaints against officers from January through August this year than in the same period in 2003, he wrote.
Police supervisors have been meeting a requirement to fill out forms summarizing their findings when an officer has used minimal force to make an arrest, such as grabbing peoples' arms to force them into a police car, Roberts said. Now, the Justice Department wants a longer narrative that will consume time that supervisors could better use to fight crime, Roberts said.
The Justice Department also wants police supervisors to collect and file taped statements from everyone involved any time a stun gun is used, rather than just when it leads to serious injury, Roberts said.
It's just ridiculous
Roberts said. We spend thousands and thousands of hours doing these reports to show what we do and how we do it. We're very happy to report what we do. But there comes a time when it's overkill.
City officials, Justice Department representatives, the ACLU and others meet monthly to review the city's progress, but it is too soon to say whether that will translate into long-term change, Greenwood said.
You just can't substitute Tasers for nightsticks and say
we're done
Greenwood said.
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