Prosecutor must steer clear of DeWine's editorial
“I … knew from my own
experience about how ingrown, defensive and isolated the [Cleveland police]
department had become. And I knew that it had to become a public issue. …
“The fact is, though,
that our police department happened to be a federation of fellows, some good,
some bad, most conservative, some reactionary, but all almost totally lacking
in the training in human relations that some departments have at least made a
beginning to provide. … The most obvious failure of the police was in their
dealing with the black community. … All the police knew that few policemen
faced charges or an appearance before the grand jury for shooting a black man
while on duty.” *
Need I go on? These
words were written almost a quarter century ago about the state of the
Cleveland Police Department nearly a half-century ago. The man who wrote them knew
what he was talking about: he had been a probation officer, a defense attorney,
and a prosecutor. He had also been in position to appoint the city’s police
chief and its safety director. His name was Carl Burton Stokes.
So let’s be clear.
Notwithstanding claims of whitewash, Attorney General Mike DeWine was correct
when he concluded there was “systemic failure” by the Cleveland
Police Department on Nov. 29. That critique, though obvious, was an editorial judgment he offered based on
his investigation. Given his explicit intent not to assign individual
culpability, it’s fair to ask whether there was a political motive to his
denouncing by implication the safety administration of Cleveland mayor Frank
Jackson?
Were DeWine’s editorial
comments intended to displace attention from the individual actions of
individual police officers who are paid, and hopefully trained, to be at their
most professional precisely when the stakes are highest?
Would DeWine excuse
those American troops at Abu Ghraib from individual moral or legal culpability
on the grounds that they were insufficiently trained? Would he have denounced
the generals instead for failing to properly train our men and women to handle
stress in combat?
I would hesitate to
think that the State’s highest law enforcement official was inclined in any way
to lend the prestige of his office to any effort to influence public opinion
before a grand jury had received this case and before a jury of the officers’
peers hears evidence concerning any criminal charges that may result from grand
jury proceedings.
To that extent I am
concerned about media reports that County Prosecutor Tim McGinty will present
the A.G.’s report to the grand jury. I believe that residents of this community
who have put their faith and trust in McGinty to seek justice in the matters
brought to his office, have a right to expect that he will use the
DeWine report for its material value in preparing the case[s] he presents to the grand jury. He should not just turn the report over to the grand jury.
I wrote back in
December that the county prosecutor is the linchpin in the ultimate arc of this case. More than any other public official — the attorney general, the
mayor, chief of police or safety director — McGinty will determine whether this
case bends towards the arc of justice. The old saying — that a good
prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich — has core elements of
truth.
McGinty’s office has
been relatively quiet in the aftermath of the Nov. 29 tragedy. He has yet to
experience the scrutiny and heat that Mayor Jackson, Police Chief Mike McGrath,
and DeWine have incurred. We see that as a good thing. But his time is surely
coming. Let us hope he recognizes when the taking of lives is unwarranted and
that each of us is accountable even where, and perhaps especially when the
system fails to function.
Candlelight
vigil tonight at Heritage Middle School
Area civil rights groups will hold a
candlelight vigil at 6PM tonight in the parking lot at Heritage Middle School
in East Cleveland, where the 25-minute police pursuit of Timothy Russell and
Malissa Williams on Nov. 29 ended in their deaths from a 137-bullet outburst by
thirteen of the more than sixty police vehicles and 100+ officers involved in
the chase of the apparently unarmed victims.
• • •
RECENT POSTS:
MONDAY ROUNDUP: CLEVELAND POLICE NOT ALONE IN NEED FOR TRAINING
& RESTRAINT
IN SEARCH OF HARRIET TUBMAN
CHAOTIC KILLING OF TWO SUSPECTS? WHY, IT'S A 'PERFECT CHASE'.
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* Carl B.
Stokes, Promises of Power: Then and Now, pp.
172-173. Stokes was Cleveland mayor from 1967 to 1971.
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