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Police in Cleveland Accept Tough Standards on Force
Police in Cleveland Accept Tough Standards on Force
By MITCH SMITH and MATT APUZZOMAY 26, 2015
CLEVELAND — The Cleveland police department, which has become synonymous with the racially charged debate over police tactics, has agreed to follow some of the most exacting standards in the nation over how and when its officers can use force, and it will accept close oversight to make sure those rules are not ignored, city and federal officials said Tuesday.
The agreement is part of a settlement with the Justice Department over what federal officials have called a pattern of unconstitutional policing and abuse in Cleveland. The department found in a review released late last year that police officers here used stun guns inappropriately, punched and kicked unarmed people, and shot at people who posed no threat. The episodes often went unreported and uninvestigated, investigators found.
“There is much work to be done, across the nation and in Cleveland, to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve where it has eroded, but it can be done,” said Vanita Gupta, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today’s agreement really should serve as a model for those seeking to address similar issues in their communities.”
At a time when the Obama administration has bemoaned the lack of data surrounding the use of force by the police, even when people are killed, Cleveland has agreed to document every time officers so much as unholster their guns. Police supervisors will investigate the uses of force in much the same way that officers investigate crimes.
“A fundamental goal of the revised use of force policy will be to account for, review and investigate every reportable use of force,” the agreement says.
The cases last year of Eric Garner, who died after a police chokehold in New York, and Michael Brown, who was shot and killed after a scuffle with a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., ignited the most vigorous national debate on policing since the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. The deaths were followed by high-profile cases in Baltimore, North Charleston, S.C., and elsewhere. The cases often revealed longstanding problems inside the departments and deeply rooted tensions between police officers and African-American communities.
The new rules in Cleveland prohibit officers from using force against people for talking back or as punishment for running away. Pistol whipping is prohibited, and so is firing warning shots, the agreement says. The city has agreed to allow an independent monitor to track its progress. If the city does not put into effect the changes specified in the settlement, a federal judge has the authority to demand them.
Cleveland also agreed to hire a civilian to lead its internal affairs unit and to appoint an inspector general to investigate police misconduct and analyze policies and trends. The federal authorities believe that those changes, along with an internal panel assigned to review use-of-force cases, will ensure that police keep accurate records and conduct genuine investigations. The city will also form a civilian advisory panel to review policies and advocate better community relations.
Mayor Frank G. Jackson said the settlement allowed the city to make changes quickly and broadly. The document “gives us the structure and the tools we need to have comprehensive reform rather than doing one thing at a time,” Mr. Jackson said. He said the city had already begun outfitting officers with body cameras and trying to work more closely with community groups.
The report calls for the department to establish a coordinator for data collection not only on use of force but also for searches and seizures, and allows the independent monitor and the Justice Department to review and approve the “stop and search” data collection system.
Some use-of-force data will be collected digitally. Stun guns, for instance, leave a digital record when they are used, and the settlement calls for periodic checks to ensure that a weapon’s data matches reports filed by officers. The document calls for investigations when an officer’s account and the stun gun’s internal record do not match. In other cases, officers will be required to self-report use of force, such as when they remove a gun from its holster, making accurate documentation harder to monitor.
Still, many political and civic leaders praised the extensive requirements for data collection, much of which will be made available to the public and used by the independent monitor to assess compliance with the settlement.
“I think anything is open to some level of manipulation,” said Representative Marcia L. Fudge, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Cleveland. “But it’s better than what we have now, which is zero. I can’t imagine that all of these problems will be fixed overnight.”
Some experts questioned whether the data requirements went too far. Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who is an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said officers were already overburdened with paperwork. He said requiring documentation of every instance in which a gun leaves its holster — a fairly common occurrence in some high-crime areas — could discourage officers from pulling out their weapons even in justifiable situations and possibly result in the disciplining of good officers who forget to fill out forms.
The settlement was announced days after a judge found a Cleveland police officer not guilty of manslaughter in the 2012 shooting of an unarmed man and woman, both black, after a car chase. The verdict prompted protests and reignited discussions about how officers treat the city’s African-American residents. Under the new rules, shooting at moving cars is generally prohibited, a guideline that policing specialists have called for in cities around the country.
The New York Police Department, for example, banned shooting at moving cars in 1972, and the number of shootings plummeted almost immediately. Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based research group, called it “probably the single most significant policy decision” police departments can make regarding use of force.
Cleveland is also tensely awaiting decisions on whether to prosecute officers in the deaths of two black people last year: Tanisha Anderson, 37, who lost consciousness and died in police custody after being placed face down on the pavement, and Tamir Rice, 12, who was holding a replica gun that could shoot plastic pellets when an officer pulled up and fatally shot him. Both cases have prompted protests, and Tamir’s death in particular has become a source of national outrage for critics of policing.
Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department has opened nearly two dozen civil rights investigations into the practices of police departments. Many elements in the Cleveland settlement — improved training, better internal oversight and an independent monitor — have become standard.
Civil rights investigators recently announced that they would open an investigation in Baltimore after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died of injuries he suffered while in police custody. The department is also negotiating a settlement with city officials in Ferguson, where the department found abusive law enforcement policies driven in large part by a mandate to raise revenue.
The result of those efforts is that the Justice Department has compiled reams of reports on how to improve police departments, and Ms. Gupta urged city leaders around the country to read them. “We have a body of work that really describes, in great detail, ways that communities can address these problems,” she said.
Many of the policies in the lengthy Cleveland report came from community members, who were asked to submit ideas for improving relations with the police. “I think people will look at this and see their handiwork in it,” said Steven M. Dettelbach, the United States attorney in Cleveland.
Mr. Dettelbach acknowledged that Cleveland faced “a heavy lift in the short term” to improve the department. “But in the long run,” he said, “these kinds of reforms make police safer and more effective.”
Critics of the Cleveland police force responded with a mixture of praise for the settlement and concern about whether the settlement would bring lasting change.
After the verdict on Saturday in the 2012 shooting, 71 people were arrested during protests, but the streets have remained calm since then. Most people were arrested on misdemeanors, but four were arraigned Tuesday on felony charges. One, a high school senior, 18, was charged with assault and rioting. A 21-year-old art student was accused of throwing a rock at the police and of assaulting an officer.
Cleveland leaders, including Mayor Jackson and Calvin D. Williams, the police chief, have praised peaceful protesters and insisted that their right to demonstrate would be respected. Chief Williams said Tuesday that he saw improving relationships with residents as vital to making the consent decree work.
“If we don’t ensure that our officers and our community have a better relationship, then a lot of what we’re trying to implement now in terms of this agreement are going to be hard to do,” Chief Williams said. “We have to have that relationship with our community. We have to have a better relationship with our community. And we’ve started on that path already.”
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.