Michael Galbraith, president of the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police unit and a 29-year Dayton officer, believes that was no accident.
“I think we’re working together,” said Galbraith, noting work done by the Community Policing Council and the Community Initiative to Reduce Gun Violence, which he said have established a stronger relationship between police, churches and citizens.
“At least in the Dayton area, there has been a good collaborative effort to try to ease any tensions and educate the public on what’s going on and how we operate here.”
Numerous people interviewed for this story say much work is needed to strengthen trust in police after the deaths of Crawford in Beavercreek, Michael Brown in Missouri, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Eric Garner in New York, Walter Scott in South Carolina, and now Gray.
Yet a fundamental level of trust between citizens and local law enforcement endures, if recent polls are any indication.
A new HuffPost/YouGov survey shows that a quarter of respondents said they have a “great deal” of trust in local police, while an additional 36 percent said they had a “fair amount” of trust.
Still, there has been an erosion following the much-publicized incidents over the past year. And there is a racial divide at work: 70 percent of whites polled said they can imagine approving of a police officer striking an adult male, according to the 2014 General Social Survey. But just 42 percent of blacks and 38 percent of Hispanics agreed they could approve of the same scenario, the survey found.
Springfield Police Division Chief Stephen P. Moody said he and other city leaders maintain a constant dialogue with community leaders to stay abreast of any concerns that arise.
But given what’s happened in Baltimore, he said, “Are we concerned? We’re all concerned. I think we’re ahead of the game here, but it’s a continual daily work we’re involved with.”
Although Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland doesn’t think the types of disturbances occurring in Baltimore could happen in his city, that doesn’t mean it won’t, he said.
“Nobody knows for sure,” Copeland said.
Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said he had an “ah-ha” moment after Cincinnati erupted in riots in 2001 following the shooting death of a 19-year-old black man, Timothy Thomas, by a white police officer.
Biehl was struck by the findings in a 2005 Rand poll that found white citizens in Cincinnati trusted police much more than did African Americans.
“When you get down to basic demographic populations, that (support) is not necessarily the case” across different races, said Biehl, who was an assistant police chief in Cincinnati when Thomas was killed.
“I never forgot that.”
Poll findings that show a racial division don’t surprise Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator from Cleveland and co-chair of Gov. John Kasich’s recent task force exploring police-community relations.
Turner said blacks and whites have similar expectations with police but not similar experiences.
“Most people believe in the police, and they want to live in a safe community,” she said. “They want to be respected, and they want justice. And that’s not too much to ask.”
Dual task forces
After the shootings last year of Crawford III, Brown and Rice, Ohio leaders convened dual task forces to explore aspects of the problem.
Both reported on their efforts last week. An advisory group by Attorney Mike DeWine examined how law enforcement professionals are trained, while Kasich’s 22-member task force released a 600-page report that made a number of recommendations on community policing and other aspects of police work.
“We are going to heal our communities,” Kasich promised as he signed an executive order to address relationships between police departments and their communities.
DeWine said trust varies from community to community.
“You have to look to the local relationship,” he said. “I think we have over 900 police departments in this state. And we have 88 sheriff’s departments.”
What matters are personal relationships between officers and neighborhoods, DeWine said.
“Every community deserves to have police officers who are working in that community who have good training — and continue to have good training every year,” DeWine said. “I think that always helps to build trust.”
Split-second decisions
Police work can be and often is dangerous. That was brought home in Hamilton in February 2014 when Police Officer Chad Stafford responded to a report of shots fired at 11th Street and Sipple Avenue.
Frightened residents had called 911 after Brandon Keeler, 18, fired several shots into the air. Stafford, the first officer to respond, took cover behind a nearby vehicle as Keeler fired at him with an AK-47.
Stafford returned fire and fatally shot Keeler but was wounded when a bullet from Keeler’s weapon grazed the top of his head.
A review of Ohio police shootings over the past year found numerous examples of police officers responding with lethal force under duress. In Columbus in January, a man lunged at officers with a knife. In Dayton last November, a man pointed a gun at officers. A man in Warren, Ohio, last September shot at officers before they took him down. On the same day that Crawford was shot inside the Walmart, Cincinnati police shot and killed a man after they said he pulled a gun on them during a foot chase.
Hamilton Police Sgt. Ed Buns gets a reminder of the dangerous nature of police work each day when he gets ready for work.
“My entire career I have worn a bullet-proof vest,” said Buns, who has been an officer for 35 years. “My children are both adults now … to them it was normal seeing me put on a bullet-proof vest every day.”
Buns said the scenario faced by Officer Stafford that February morning is all-too-real for many police officers.
“The only thing you have is a split-second decision to say, ‘What do I do?’” he said.
DeWine’s task force urged higher hiring standards for police recruits across the state and a substantial increase in basic training and ongoing training.
Ohio law, for example, does not require police candidates to have a diploma, pass a drug test, take a psychological screening or meet a physical fitness standard.
Buns, who teaches students and cadets at the Butler Tech vocational school and the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy in London, Ohio, said training alone is not the answer.
“What you have to tell young officers is, we can mandate all kinds of educational requirements,” he said “We can mandate all kinds of training requirements. But the one thing you can’t mandate or assess is common sense.”
‘Cops know when they have bad cops’
Lack of trust in the police force can be dispelled only with transparency, said former state Sen. Tom Roberts of Dayton, who served on Kasich’s police community relations task force.
“If the officer was wrong, immediately take an action,” he said. “Cops know when they have bad cops.”
Self-policing is key, Turner agreed.
“This is what we (task force members ) heard a lot in the communities,” she said. “If those good police officers would stand up and say, ‘We don’t like people within our ranks who don’t do the right thing.’”
Michael Wright, the Dayton attorney for the family of John Crawford III, believes the problem is not intractable.
“I think a lot of the communities are frustrated with the policing in their communities,” Wright said. “I think this can be cured. I think there has to be transparency between the policing and the community.”
Although Wright hadn’t read the entire report the Kasich task force released last week when he was interviewed by this newspaper, his initial assessment was that it was a “good first step.”
But, he said, “What I don’t see are specific items that are going to be implemented and the time frame for that implementation.”
The report calls for greater accountability and oversight of police and agencies, more community involvement and a grand jury review process to review use-of-force matters that is overseen by the Ohio Supreme Court or another authority.
The document also calls for greater recruitment of minority candidates for police jobs and statewide minimum hiring standards for police, as well as a stronger emphasis on continuing training.
“It’s going to take a lot more effort to make a difference,” Wright said. “A task force, in and of itself, is not going to change policing-community relations in the state of Ohio.”
Next steps
Biehl said one of the most important aspects of police work is listening during encounters with citizens.
“What I’ve told police officers throughout my career is we are goodwill ambassadors every day,” Biehl said.
Patrick Oliver, director of Cedarville University’s criminal justice program and and a former police chief in four departments including in Fairborn, said building relationships is critical to gaining trust.
But he also said departments need to be more transparent when police are accused of wrongdoing.
“When that is done, I think trust is built,” he said. “And over a long period of time, the credibility that is gained will be higher.”
Turner said the next steps for the state will be taken by a newly created 12-member Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Relations, formed by Kasich’s executive order. That body will take the task force’s recommendations “and make them actionable,” she said.
State investments in police training and advisory functions are a must, according to Turner.
“What’s happening in Baltimore is just the canary in the coal mine,” she said. “We have been put on notice as a nation.”
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