Trouble in Cincinnati -- again

Departments that have a history of conflict between police officers and minority citizens have an obligation to do better. Cincinnati is one of those communities.
This past week Cincinnati was again making national news because of the death of a man in police custody. Nathaniel Jones, 41, died during a clash with six police officers, some of whom repeatedly struck him with nightsticks as they struggled to subdue him.
To be sure, Jones was the primary contributor to his own death. He was morbidly obese. He had coronary disease and high blood pressure. He had ingested cocaine, PCP and methanol. He was behaving bizarrely at 5:30 in the morning in a White Castle restaurant. And, at least as far as the video tape shows, he lunged at a police officer and threw the first punch.
Bad reaction
But regardless of what happened up until that moment, what happened in the next few minutes raises serious questions. Six police officers beat Jones into submission. When his heart stopped, the officers seemed confused about how to respond. Just as disturbing, an EMT crew that had been on the scene earlier had left. Their continued presence might have meant the difference between life and death.
Since 1995, 18 persons have died in confrontations with Cincinnati police. It does not help that all, including Jones, were black. Some of those persons were clearly armed and dangerous. One, a 12-year-old boy, was shot behind the wheel of a stolen car while dragging a black police officer to his death.
There have been riots in Cincinnati over some of these deaths. There have been lawsuits, some of them successful. There have been local investigations and federal investigations. In short, there has been enough reason for the Cincinnati police department to have responded aggressively to the problem.
Knee-jerk reactions
Too often the aftermath of one of these deaths has mirrored what is being seen today. The black community responds with outrage and accusations of racism. The white community responds with expressions of support for the police department. The police chief responds, as Chief Tom Streicher already has, by saying that he thinks his officers went by the book.
That's not good enough. No city can be a great city unless people -- black or white, private citizens or municipal officials -- live together in some semblance of harmony.
Police officers have a difficult job, to be sure. But they also have enormous power -- literally the power of life and death, and they have an obligation to exert that power prudently. The city for which they work has an obligation to train and equip each officer so that the likelihood of harm to private citizens -- even boisterous, hard-to-handle private citizens -- is minimized.
There's reason to believe that Cincinnati continues to fall short in that regard.