Dead at the hands of police. The Columbus Dispatch reports that early Tuesday a Columbus police officer shot and killed an unarmed Black man while responding to a neighbor’s noise complaint:
Police spokesman Sgt. James Fuqua said officers were dispatched at 1:37 a.m. Tuesday on a non-emergency call to the 1000 block of Oberlin Drive on the city’s Northwest Side for a disturbance involving an SUV running on and off for an extended time. Fuqua said the complaint came from a neighbor.
The officer did not turn on his body camera until after the shooting.
When officers arrived on the scene, they found a home’s garage door open and a man inside.
The man, who was visiting someone at the home, walked toward officers with a cellphone in his left hand and his right hand not visible, according to a review by city officials of one of the responding officer’s body-worn camera footage.
One officer fired his weapon, striking the 47-year-old Black man, who later died at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital.
A weapon was not recovered at the scene
The Tuesday shooting occurred less than three weeks since a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy Jason Meade shot and killed another Black man, Casey Goodson Jr., 23. The deputy alleged Goodson, a concealed-carry permit holder with no criminal background, pointed a gun at him. There were no eye witnesses. The attorney for the Goodson family dispute the deputy’s account:
“With Meade’s statement issued nearly one full week after he killed Casey, it is critical to note that this is a classic defense often claimed by police after they shoot and kill someone,” they said. “It is also critical to remember that often the evidence does not support these claims.”
For more on this “classic defense,” take some time to read “How Cities Lost Control of Police Discipline” in the New York Times:
Throughout the 1970s, unions changed the disciplinary process, city by city, contract by contract. Some provisions mirrored the rights of criminal defendants: for instance, allowing officers to see any evidence against them. Other measures went much further. Officers under review were given 24 or 48 hours — or up to 30 days in Louisiana — before investigators could interview them, which critics complained allowed errant cops to concoct a defense for any accusation. Many cities banned anonymous complaints. Reprimands could be erased from an officer’s file after a few years.
Many experts and public officials said cities failed to anticipate the long-term implications of such provisions. “It felt a lot of times like Elmer Fudd negotiated for the City of Portland and the police union brought Perry Mason,” said Jo Ann Hardesty, a city commissioner, one of the city’s most vocal advocates of police reform.
The way employee contracts developed since the 1960s has left elected officials with little control over hiring, firing, and discipline of its police forces. In Detroit, for example, the police commissioner does not have final authority in disciplinary actions. Disputes go to arbitration, including in Columbus:
The 83-page contract between Columbus and its police union shows how arbitration works there, similar to many other cities. The arbitrator, usually a lawyer, is picked from a short list of names submitted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a government agency that tries to prevent labor disputes. The city and the union each strike a name until one remains.
“Who do you end up with?” asked Daniel Oates, the former police chief in Miami Beach, Fla.; Aurora, Colo.; and Ann Arbor, Mich. “The guy who’s much more likely to have a middle-of-the-road decision in a termination. What’s the middle-of-the-road decision in a termination? Well, it ain’t a termination.”
Half the time, the Times found, fired cops end up back on the force and on the street.
These problems, the “warrior cop” culture as well, we have examined here multiple times over the years. The Times report suggests it took a long time to take root and it could take time to uproot. The “defund” movement is still in its infancy, and I have no idea whether the needed retooling of policing will happen, but the Times investigation points to a few of the stumbling blocks.
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