Task-force proposals offer hope for stronger police ties

Recent shooting deaths of a stopped motorist in Cincinnati and a teenager outside a South Carolina Hardee’s by police officers illustrate vividly that strained police-community relations remains as contentious and troubling an issue as ever throughout our state and nation.

They also illustrate that an aggressive and comprehensive campaign to improve those relations must remain a priority goal of law-enforcement agencies and governments at all levels.

Fortunately, for Ohioans, the Buckeye State has taken an active and early lead toward tempering those tensions. Several state-sponsored panels over the past year have been studying ways to strengthen those ties and have proposed a thoughtful, diverse and promising set of recommendations. The onus toward effecting such change, however, must now rest with local police agencies, state legal authorities, the General Assembly and the governor. The proposals deserve an opportunity to prove their value.

Leading the way among these efforts has been the 24-member Ohio Task Force on Police-Community Relations, which has issued a voluminous 629-page report filled with example after example of distrust and apprehension between community – particularly minority community – residents and our men and women in blue. More importantly, task force members who scoured the state to gain input have forged dozens of concrete proposals worthy of serious consideration. Among them:

Requiring all police departments in Ohio to adopt a state-approved model hiring policy that includes more training, outreach to increase the ranks of minority officers and incentives to encourage police to live in the communities they serve.

Outlawing policies that encourage police to serve as revenue-generating mechanisms for communities as was the practice in Ferguson, Mo., and ensuring all police officers are armed with pepper spray, stun guns and other less lethal options than firearms to deter or de-escalate tensions and violence.

Establishing more proactive community policing programs in which officers spend their entire shifts in one neighborhood to defuse problems before they explode. The task force specifically recommends creation of a grant program to award $1 million to each state House district for disbursement among police agencies. The program would result in the addition of 1,100 community police officers statewide.

BISHOP MURRY’S PROPOSAL

The Most Rev. George V. Murry, bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown and task force member, also made a compelling proposal. He urges the state to ensure an independent investigative team probes all police-involved deaths. His plan is modeled after a recently enacted law in Wisconsin. The bishop’s proposal could go far toward lessening the general perception of bias in favor of police officers whenever a resident is killed at their hands.

Collectively, the task force recommendations parallel many of those also announced or under consideration by those studying President Barack Obama’s $263 million initiative to enhance police-community ties and those of the Ohio Attorney General’s Advisory Group on Law Enforcement Training. The latter group’s final report is scheduled to be delivered to Gov. John Kasich by Sept. 3.

Some of the advisory group’s and task force’s proposals will require state legislative action. Others may need an executive order from Kasich. Still others will require only the will and initiative of local communities and their police leaders.

To our credit, Youngstown already has embraced several of the ideas. The task force recommended replication statewide of Youngstown’s model Community Initiative to Reduce Violence in which police, faith-based leaders and community officials target crime-aversion programming to young criminals and others who could easily succumb to such a life. In addition, Youngstown Police Chief Robin Lees has embraced and implemented a community policing program. Other local groups have responded to the task force’s call for more events that unite residents and police.

On Saturday, for example, about 80 people participated in The Valley’s Finest Basketball Tournament at East High School in which police became teammates – not enemies – of city youths.

“Events like this can show kids not to be afraid of police and show the police not to be afraid of kids,” Joselyn Carter, a youth-empowerment leader, said in a story on the tournament in Sunday’s Vindicator.

Such events also represent one small step toward stronger police-community ties. Toward making even stronger and longer lasting advances, let the task force’s recommendations serve as a viable road map.