Over 1,500 residents of Ward 11, where Tamir Rice was gunned down in a park at the Cudell Recreation Center, signed a petition demanding that Mayor Frank Jackson reopen the shuttered police ministation on that sits empty and unused on the same site near the Center.
Councilwoman Dona Brady, who represents the ward on Cleveland’s City Council, posits that if the ministation (which was opened in the 1990s along with other such facilities in every ward in the city under then-Mayor Michael R. White as a way to improve community policing) had remained open the cop who killed Tamir probably would have known the 12-year-old by name, and the child most likely would still be alive today.
In a written statement to U.S. Attorney Steven Dettlelbach, Brady and Rose Zitello, who heads the Westown Community Development Corp. in the ward, stated, “The mini-station officers were so familiar with their territory and the people residing in them that they knew who lived where, who the gang members were, where the guns were and the drugs were being sold and so on … it was an intimate relationship with the community.”
However, at a recent community meeting Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis said, “not all cops buy into community policing.” But community policing is not a debatable theory (similar to the debate over global warming, or evolution versus creationism) it’s a proven policing technique that saves lives, and should not be a matter of choice for cops: They should either do it with alacrity or find other jobs. Period.
But Loomis’ comment goes directly to the heart of the problem with policing here in Cleveland, as well as within many other cities across the country. Police unions have become so powerful that cops feel they — not police brass, city councils, or mayors — have the right to decide policy and how they are to perform their duties.
And guess what? Until some entity, like the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, comes along and forces cops to otherwise, they’re right. They’ll continue doing their job anyway they damn well please. That’s why the consent decree being negotiated by the city and the feds is so crucially important, and why Loomis is so dead set against it.
The ministations were done away with under the administration of then-Mayor Jane Campbell, but current Safety Director Michael McGrath was the chief of police at the time. He had to be onboard with the shuttering of the ministations or it would not have happened. It’s impossible to imagine Campbell ordering the closings if McGrath and others in the department had objected.
Which creates a problem for the reopening of the ministations. One thing cops never, ever do is to admit they were wrong … in any circumstance or situation. Often it has to do with avoiding a lawsuit against the city (which an admission of guilt might encourage), but just as often it’s a part of the culture of policing in America. Even after cases are long settled no apologies are ever offered.
There have been numerous instances across the country where SWAT teams have kicked in the wrong door to a dwelling, but they won’t say “sorry” … they simply refuse to apologize; they always let the law departments handle any complaints about their behavior.
My point is, if McGrath was chiefly responsible for getting rid of the police ministations years ago, does anyone really think that he’s now going to reverse himself and say that shuttering them was a mistake — one that was made on his watch? Not jolly well likely.
A cop I’ve written about before, retired Captain Joe Sadie (and yes, he’s a personal friend of mine) has forgotten more about community policing than anyone presently on the Cleveland force ever knew. He ran a program (it was a 501(c) 3 that didn’t use a dime of city money) called Cops & Kids. One of his main events took place during the holidays when cops from all over the city would go out with him to rec centers and daycare facilities around the city dressed as Santa and his Elves, and distribute toys to preschoolers. This was his way of establishing a relationship between children and police officers early on.
He also badgered the city into allowing him to give away some of the thousands of unclaimed bicycles that had been sitting in a police warehouse for years. As a reporter I covered a story when about a dozen volunteers from Key Bank spent a day repairing bikes as part of a community service initiative. He also had other groups come in and help him on a regular basis. Sadie would then distribute the bikes across the city to toddlers and teens in need of a set of wheels.
Joe Sadie knew how to connect cops with kids, but there were some cops on the force who didn’t buy into his “touchy, feely” notions of policing … they were more into the “kicking ass and taking names” cowboy mentality. So when the opportunity came along he was run out of the department and his program almost immediately disbanded — by none other than a former SWAT commander, Michael McGrath.
“It’s about being proactive in neighborhood policing,” Councilwoman Brady said. “[It’s about] knowing your people and being on a first name basis with the residents … there is nothing at all that can take the place of that kind of familiarity.”
Sorry councilwoman, community policing is just not going to happen in Cleveland, unless and until some outside entity forces it on the recalcitrant cops on the force. And, to my mind, the sooner this happens the better … lives can depend on it.
[Photo: swong95765]
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.