Targeting license plate is poor response to shooting

For years, a small but deter- mined faction in the General Assembly has attempted to remove the front license plate from Ohio motor vehicles. There have been commissions to study the issue, hearings and various failed pieces of legislation.

Now in a bizarre twist, a Cincinnati legislator is not proposing to eliminate the plate, but his legislation would make it difficult to enforce the law, and, even in the rare cases when police were able to issue a citation, the fine would be a maximum of $25.

Democratic Sen. Cecil Thomas of Cincinnati has introduced a bill that would make driving without a front license plate a secondary rather than primary violation – meaning officers couldn’t stop a driver or issue a citation unless they had another reason to pull over a driver.

The bill is officially titled the “DuBose was a Beacon Act,” a reference to Samuel DuBose, the Cincinnati man who was shot July 19 by University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, who initially stopped DuBose because he was driving without a front plate. Tensing has been charged with murder in DuBose’s death.

This bill not only weakens the state’s legitimate law requiring two license plates, it wrongly conflates DuBose’s death with enforcement of the law, and it offers a false and superficial solution to the problem of misuse of deadly force by police officers.

BENEFITS OF TWO PLATES

Let’s first address the license-plate issue.

The Ohio License Plate Safety Task Force was created by the Legislature in 2013 to examine how license plates degrade over the years and to determine if the state should continue to require two license plates.

At three hearings, representatives of local and state police agencies, a motorists association and the Ohio School Board Association testified.

Capt. Chad McGinty of the Ohio State Highway Patrol testified that the patrol locates and charges nearly 400 drivers a year for passing stopped school buses, and many of those citations are possible because bus drivers got license numbers from a front plate.

Front plates make it easier for police responding to an emergency call that involves a vehicle description and full or partial license plate number to watch for suspect vehicles driving away from the scene. Front plates double the chances that security cameras will capture information that might be valuable when police are investigating a crime. And in an age when police are utilizing License Plate Recognition readers or when the public is asked to watch for a suspect vehicle in an Amber Alert situation, the front plates are of obvious value. Front plates also help states find EZ Pass violators.

Not a single person testified against continuing the use of front plates in Ohio.

Thirty-one states require two license plates. This wouldn’t even be a serious question in Ohio if it weren’t for a fluke. Ohio is surrounded by five states that happen to be in the minority of states that have only one plate: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan.

It’s sometimes difficult being the outlier, but in the case of requiring two license plates, Ohio should wear the badge proudly. Its policy is the one that makes more sense.

THE DUBOSE SHOOTING

As to honoring Samuel DuBose with this ill-conceived piece of legislation, let’s be frank: There are a number of reasons why DuBose shouldn’t have been shot. But there’s no good reason why he shouldn’t have been stopped.

He was driving without one of the license plates that is required on a motor vehicle. It doesn’t matter whether it was a front plate or a back plate. It subsequently became clear that he also was driving without a driver’s license. And, obviously, driving without insurance. The lack of a license plate was a reliable predictor of his scofflaw status.

If Ray Tensing or any police officer had been intent on pulling DuBose over, he or she could have easily seen or presumed to have seen some other “primary offense” – failure to signal, weaving within or out of a lane of traffic, driving too fast or driving too slow – to justify a stop.

Thomas’ bill would only encourage improper action by unscrupulous police officers while making it more difficult for conscientious officers, school bus drivers and turnpike authorities to do their jobs. It’s a bad response to a tragic occurrence. It trivializes one man’s death without doing anything to prevent a similar shooting today, a month from now or a year from now.