This just in via email: Washington D.C. – The acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Michael Botticelli, said the federal government will deny federal funding to drug courts across the country that refuse medication-assisted treatment for those suffering from opiate addictions. The ONDCP will now withhold federal funding from drug courts that prevent people suffering from opiate addictions from having access to drugs such as methadone and Suboxone that can allow them to lead normal lives despite their addiction.
Since my focus of late has been entirely on police brutality, readers might wonder what the above paragraph has to do with reforming Cleveland’s police department. But bear with me and allow me to explain, after providing you with another bit of information.
Those of you old enough to remember the lines of cars around the block as drivers lined up for gas during the oil crisis of 1973, and then again in 1979, will also recall the feds called for speed limits to be reduced to 55 mph across the country. However, since speed limits are the prerogative of each state, some legislatures, especially some out West, balked at the federal request … with some governors flat-out saying “no.”
However, when the feds asked these governors if they wanted to foot the entire bill for building highways in their states (up to 80 percent of the funds for road building was coming from the feds), they quickly changed their minds and got on-board with the lower speed limit. Again, what does this have to do with reforming policing in Cleveland?
Just this: The feds know how to coerce governors (mayors, and anyone else) into acquiescing — which is a nice way of saying “getting with their program.” This is the reality Frank Jackson, the mayor of a city that receives probably in excess of a third of its funding for a wide variety of city services from the feds, is eventually going to have to come to grips with. He’s only going to be able to dig his heels in over keeping his special assistant, Marty Flask and safety director Michael McGrath for so long until they turn the heat up so high Jackson will have no choice — like it or not — but to capitulate.
The feds feel that trust cannot be rebuilt between the residents and the police as long as these two top officials are still on-board. And, as I’ve written before, while Jackson might be right in wanting to keep them since he figures no one else could have done a better job, he’s wrong in thinking that healing can begin with them around. It’s only a matter of time.
The mistakes Mayor Jackson is making in his thinking are two-fold: First, because he’s never had more than a ripple of turbulence in a career in elective office dating back to 1989 when he first won a seat on City Council, he thinks he can handle the current situation in a manner of his own choosing and liking — simply because he’s always been able to do. Wrong. Secondly, he’s vastly underestimating how willing the feds are to play hardball when they feel it necessary. I’m talking real hardball.
Let’s revisit the first premise for a bit. Nothing breeds success like success, and by all accounts Frank Jackson’s tenure as mayor (and City Council president before that, as well as the representative of Ward 5 even before that) has been as smooth as glass and clear as an un-muddied lake. The only hiccup in his time in office was when he was considering a wacky sounding deal to bring a high-tech light bulb manufacturing facility to Cleveland from China — a deal he ran away from like a scalded dog at the first sign of a problem.
Otherwise, with a rubberstamp City Council, and the business community solidly behind him, he’s never had to face any kind of challenge — a fact that has obviously lead him to believe that he’s somehow bulletproof. He’s not.
The second premise, and perhaps the most important is this: The feds can’t afford to lose — ever. Oh, the Department of Justice might lose a case every now and then as they did in the Amish beard-cutting incident, but not very often.
If you recall, Samuel Mullet Sr. was the leader of a group of 15 Amish men who cut off the beards of five other Amish men as punishment in a religious dispute. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in spite of the fact he wasn’t present when the incidents occurred. The feds charged it as a hate crime (which absolutely made no sense, since they’re all of the same faith … duh) but the convictions were overturned in August 2014 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Dettlelbach overreached by a mile on that case, and appropriately got shot down.
But anyone, either the mayor, or those close to him, who sees this odd case as an indication that the feds can be beat, are more than sadly mistaken … they’re dreaming. They’re been smoking their underwear.
Here’s why: Cleveland isn’t the first city in the country the feds had to go into and put under a federal consent decree, and it certainly won’t be the last. Everyone in the federal judiciary has known for years that something is wrong with how America is being policed and they’re on-board with the Justice Department dropping the federal hammer to make changes. They further know that absent federal intervention, police departments will not change simply because the way local politics is played across the country, they can’t.
Now, if the feds lose here in Cleveland their legs will be cut out from under them when the move on to the next city … and, believe me, they’re not about to allow that to happen. There’s simply too much at stake: The future of policing in America.
One thing everyone in Cleveland needs to understand is that the wheels of the U.S. Department of Justice grind very slowly (sometimes painfully so) … but in the end they grind exceedingly fine. When they get through locking-ass with someone — indeed anyone — there’s nothing left but very fine dust. Just ask anyone whose happened to be unwise enough to go toe-to-toe with the feds. In the end, they just don’t take no prisoners.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.