The story from Cincinnati is a familiar one: a white police officer shoots a black teenager, later found to have been unarmed, and the African-American community erupts. A curfew is imposed, and the Mayor declares that the incident will be a catalyst for “real” review and subsequent improvement of community-police relations.
The story from Cincinnati is a familiar one: a white police officer shoots a black teenager, later found to have been unarmed, and the African-American community erupts. A curfew is imposed, and the Mayor declares that the incident will be a catalyst for “real” review and subsequent improvement of community-police relations.
As the New York Times noted in its April 16th issue, this was déjà vu all over again. “A black man is killed, an investigation is conducted, hearings are held, a report is written and then promptly forgotten.” The Times detailed numerous prior incidents in Cincinnati that followed that pattern and arguably generated the frustrations that exploded following the most recent shooting.
While there are a number of possible reactions to the Cincinnati situation, residents of Indianapolis should add to that list a sigh of relief—because it could so easily have happened here.
- Indianapolis, like Cincinnati, has a history of police shootings of African-Americans.
- Indianapolis, like Cincinnati, has generated a whole shelf of “Blue Ribbon” reports on the dismal state of police-community relations.
- In Indianapolis, as in Cincinnati, there was ample evidence of a simmering hostility between the police and the black community. In recent years, that evidence included the “downtown brawl” and the mini-riot at 46th and College, but those were just the latest incidents in a long, long line of confrontations that were contained and hushed up whenever possible.
But there is a difference between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. That difference dates from the Meridian Street Brawl, when the inevitable task force, this time convened by the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee and its Race Relations Leadership Network, sought and got meaningful changes in the City’s Civilian Review process.
It wasn’t easy. The task force itself went through difficult negotiations, as might be expected from a large, representative and unwieldy group of people, all with firm ideas about the subject at hand. And once the task force had developed a proposal all the members could live with, it was a monumental task getting the City County Council to enact the recommendations. Councilor Bill Dowden, who chairs the Council’s Public Safety Committee, did everything in his power to defeat it, and has subsequently tried to torpedo it.
Fortunately, IPD’s own leadership is light-years ahead of Councilor Dowden . Since the ordinance amendments were passed, IPD has worked hard and in good faith to implement not only the letter but the spirit of the process. The result: fewer complaints filed, and an easing of suspicion and resentment in minority communities.
We aren’t home free by any means, nor is IPD perfect, but Chief Barker and his administration have sent out strong signals that racial profiling and other discriminatory enforcement practices will not be tolerated. An IPD officer is the co-chair of a new task force convened by the Race Relations Leadership Network to look at racial disparities in drug law enforcement.Thanks to that attitude and leadership, Indianapolis may be able to avoid turmoil like that unfolding now in Cincinnati.
Sometimes, doing the right thing pays dividends.