As Mayor
Frank Jackson and Councilman Zack Reed make final preparations for what is
likely to be their only debate before Nov. 5, when voters will decide who will
be Cleveland’s mayor for the next four years, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s
Association endorsement of Reed has suddenly become a campaign issue.
What have we
come to 50 years after the election of Carl Stokes as the city’s black first
mayor? The CPPA was created in opposition to Carl Stokes’ authority following
the Glenville shootout in 1968. The
CPPA’s current leader is Steve Loomis — a
spiritual descendant of Bull Connor. Loomis is contemptuous of the city’s
consent decree with the US Department of Justice and the findings of police
misconduct upon which it is based. In his eyes, it was “good police work” when
100 cops in sixty police cars chased two unarmed citizens at high speeds
throughout the city and across municipal lines — in open defiance of police
procedures and the direct orders of their superiors — cornered the “suspects”
in a schoolyard and then fired 137 shots at close range into their defenseless
bodies.
Likewise,
Loomis found nothing inappropriate when a cop so intemperate and so incompetent
he was unsuitable as a crossing guard, to say nothing of an armed officer of
the law, shot and killed 12 year old Tamir Rice within two seconds of the cop’s
reckless approach.
Loomis not
only defends every instance of excessive and/or deadly use of police force; he
exults in smearing any citizen or attorney who questions police behavior. A grandstander
of the first degree, he was only too delighted to show his contempt for the
First Amendment by announcing his men would not provide security at Cleveland
Browns football games because some team members choose to kneel in silent
protest of injustice during the playing of the national anthem.
Who would
want the endorsement of such a man?
Well, what if
a candidate’s opponent was the incumbent mayor at the time Tamir Rice was
killed and the 137-bullet chase took place? What if that mayor promoted the
police chief at the time of that chase to safety director? What if that mayor
appointed the safety director at the time of that chase to some sort of special
adviser? And what if the mayor refused to explain either promotion?
It is
simpleminded to tar and feather Reed for accepting the CPPA’s endorsement when
his opponent, the incumbent mayor, has been unable to bring any significant
reform to the department that regulates CPPA members.
The plain
fact is that relations between Cleveland police and city hall and between the
police and the community have been troubled for more than half a century.
The
dynamics of those relationships need to change. In They Can't Kill Us All: The Story of the Struggle for Black Lives, a book by former
Clevelander Wesley Lowery, now a Washington Post reporter, Reed described the
situation this way:
“[Violence] is in the DNA of not
only the residents but also the police. If we don’t change that mindset, that
it’s us against them, then we’re never going to fix this problem.”
Loomis’
single-minded defense of his ranks irrespective of the behavior of the roguish
behavior of some of them, together with his efforts to undermine implementation
of the consent decree between the City and the US Department of Justice, are undeniable obstacles to improving police-community relations and the quality of
policing in our city.
But a far larger question than who the CPPA endorses in this race is this: who or what
can lead to a reform of Cleveland’s police culture?
Today's mayoral debate can be livestreamed here, starting at 12:30PM.
Today's mayoral debate can be livestreamed here, starting at 12:30PM.
