CLEVELAND, Ohio – A proposal by the group Citizens for a Safer Cleveland would rewrite part of Cleveland’s charter to hand oversight of the police department to the citizens officers are sworn to protect.
The proposed charter amendment, submitted by initiative petition, almost certainly will have enough valid signatures to make the November ballot. (The coalition recently turned in more than 3,200 names to make up for a shortfall of 384 valid signatures at the petition deadline.)
It’s a proposal deeply rooted in the community’s distrust of police and in a call for accountability that reached a fever pitch after the Cleveland police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014.
It echoes the fervor for greater police transparency, rising across the nation since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last May.
And it’s an acknowledgment of the system’s many broken pieces that a federal consent decree governing police reform in Cleveland just hasn’t been able to fix.
The goal of the charter issue is to install independent oversight that will finally ensure transparency and accountability, said Latonya Goldsby, president and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Cleveland, one of the groups in the coalition behind the proposal.
“It will make sure that we have independent investigations,” Goldsby said. “We don’t want fabricated justice. We want real justice.”
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer analyzed the proposal against the current charter language and gathered viewpoints of its supporters and its critics.
Here’s what we found:
Putting the people in charge
“The whole concept behind all of this is asserting greater control over the Division of Police,” said Subodh Chandra, a civil rights attorney who drafted the proposed charter amendment. He also has represented Tamir’s family.
The charter amendment would dramatically shift oversight of Cleveland’s police to civilians serving on independent panels.
Complaints made against the police by citizens – everything from rude behavior to improper use of force -- would be investigated by the staff of a Civilian Police Review Board. That panel would then decide on disciplinary action.
The chief of police and Cleveland’s director of public safety would be required to follow those recommendations in most cases.
Tougher scrutiny for complaints about police conduct
The current civilian review board hears complaints from citizens and makes recommendations for discipline. But they are just that – recommendations for the police chief and safety director to consider.
Under the charter change, that authority would be flipped.
The police internal affairs department would still investigate potential wrongdoing within the department. The police chief would still make internal discipline decisions.
But the department’s Office of Professional Standards would be put under the authority of the review board to investigate public complaints “without interference from the chief of police or executive head of the police force (the public safety director).”
The police chief and the safety director would be required to presume the board’s findings are correct, “absent affirmative proof by clear-and-convincing evidence that the findings and recommendations are clearly erroneous.”
A new powerful Community Police Commission
Thirteen members, representing a diverse cross-section of the community, would be nominated by the mayor and approved by the City Council for four-year terms to serve on a newly created Community Police Commission.
Up to three members could represent policing organizations, such as a police union, but they would have to show “a background relevant to police-community relations” and have no record of police misconduct.
The commission would have the final word on disciplinary action, when it gets cases for review. It also would have a staff to address a broad range of policy issues, including:
- Recommending candidates for police commander and inspector general to the mayor.
- Having final authority over police policies, procedures, and training regimens.
- Verifying police-officer training.
- Engaging in community outreach to gather views on police-community relations, police policies and accountability.
- Auditing police investigative processes, including for quality assurance and adherence to policy, and periodically publishing information for the public.
- Making grants to community-based violence-prevention, restorative-justice, and mediation programs to reduce the need for police activity.
- Directing the Civilian Police Review Board to investigate every police officer against whom a lawsuit has been threatened or filed, or for whom the city has paid a settlement to avoid liability or for whom there has been a court judgment.
Critics fear it could damage democracy
Councilman Blaine Griffin, who once served as Mayor Frank Jackson’s director of community relations, said he and his colleagues are concerned about vesting authority in non-elected citizens.
“Democracy demands that elected officials be held accountable and this board is not elected,” Griffin said. Rather, an appointed bureaucracy would have independent authority over the police department. That makes him uncomfortable with the proposal, he said.
The mayor of Cleveland would still appoint the director of public safety and the chief of police to run the department.
But the bolstered Civilian Police Review Board, with its appointed members, would have broad investigative authority. And the newly created Community Policing Commission, also appointed, would have final say over discipline issues and key policy decisions.
“At the end of the day, even though it sounds like democracy, is it really democracy if the voice of the electorate is drowned out?” Griffin said.
Griffin also questions whether amending the charter is the best approach, given that any future changes would require returning to the ballot.
“I think the overall themes of civilian oversight and police accountability -- no one can disagree with that,” Griffin said. “Everybody knows police accountability polls through the roof.”
Griffin would prefer to engage the community in developing policy and enacting it through ordinances – which can be changed more easily.
But in Chandra’s view, the goals of the proposal are more important – to give the people a voice and perhaps lead to greater respect for police.
“What we do know now is people will have a place to go when they’re dissatisfied,” Chandra said, assuming the charter issue passes.
“I think once [police] get used to the idea that there’s someone looking over [their] shoulder, once we see the culture change, then we’ll see more confidence in the police department,” he said.
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