In
2001 and 2002, the dramatic deaths of five African-Americans during or
following a police action made Rochester headlines. In
one incident, an officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who was fleeing a
police chase. In another, an officer tripped during a drug raid and fatally
shot a man.
<p?It was a tense time. For a while,
the deaths seemed to come one on top of another, says attorney and former
Family Court Judge Michael Miller. In the aftermath, Mayor Bill Johnson
appointed a two-member committee —Miller and the Rev. Lawrence Hargrave, Director of Family, Church, and Community
Relations at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
— to study the long-standing problems of police and their relationship with
the community they serve.
<p?Last week, Johnson, Hargrave, and Miller released the results of the nearly
two-year study. Undoubtedly, the report will be controversial, particularly
among critics who were hoping for a stern indictment of police. There is no
indictment.
<p?The report doesn’t go into the
deaths that precipitated the study. It doesn’t, in fact, dwell a lot on police
use of force. “The purpose,” it says, “was not to investigate or assign blame
for these incidents” but to try to find a way to keep them from happening again
— and to find ways to improve relations between
police and the community in general.
Hargrave
says he knows that some people — “including,” he says, “some friends of mine”
— will be angry. “If you’re a member of the [African-American] community,” he
said in an interview last week, “you know that we have problems in
police-community relations.”
But “the problem is more complex
than we would like to imagine,” he said. “Yes, there is an element of race and
racism there. But there are also challenges in terms of basic relationship
issues. If you don’t know people and cannot experience people on a personal and
human level, you will not have good relations with them. And that is a problem
on both sides.”
“I’m a black man,” said Hargrave, “and I’m a big black man, and for some people I’m
an intimidating presence. Not only as a community, but also as a country, we
have to do better about race.”
Hargrave and Miller’s report is a lengthy, expansive
document. And the tone — starting with its title, “Pathways to Better
Police-Community Relations in Rochester” — is
evenhanded and relatively mild. There is no declaration of crisis, no call for
radical solutions.
Hargrave
and Miller go out of their way not to place blame. There is frequent praise for
efforts the city and the police department have made. The context is often one
of “we have made progress, but there’s work to be done.”
In the report, Hargrave
and Miller insist repeatedly that the solution to troubled police-community
relations does not lie solely within the Rochester Police Department. No one
segment of the community, on its own, can improve those relations, says the
report.
And Hargrave
and Miller unveil a raft of recommendations, dozens and dozens of them, dealing
with the police department, drug treatment, media coverage, the Rochester
school district, the Bar Association, neighborhood groups, the clergy.
There may, in fact, be criticism
that the report and its recommendations are too broad, that because Hargrave and Miller call for a wide variety of actions by
the entire community, there’ll be no action by anybody. But Miller and Hargrave insist that police-community
relations is a two-way street.
Too often, Miller said last week,
there is a rush to judgment. Neighborhood activists sometimes assume that
police are always at fault in a confrontation, and police assume that they are
never at fault.
“We have to change the culture in
the police department,” said Miller, “and we’ve got to change the culture on
the streets as well.”
“The truth is,” said Hargrave, “police have the ability and the authority to use
deadly force. We have to do a better job training
police officers. But we have to train members of the public in what police can
do and where they need to draw their own line.
Confidential
interviews by
Hargrave and Miller with more than 100 people —
including 30 police officers and administrators and 28 neighborhood leaders —
form the backbone of the report. They also reviewed local police department
records, information on practices in 15 other cities, and other material. The
Center for Governmental Research provided staff support, and RIT’s criminal-justice department conducted a telephone
survey of Rochester residents.
The result is a broad analysis of a
complicated, emotional issue. But the common thread is that the civilian deaths
and the controversy surrounding them are the symptoms of a more fundamental
problem: a deep, serious, community divide, rooted in a lack of understanding
and trust.
Police in some neighborhoods are
viewed as “an occupying force who don’t distinguish citizens from legitimate
suspects,” says the report. Neighborhood leaders and clergy told of police
stopping and questioning residents with “an unnecessary sneering, disrespectful
verbal comment, with no apology at the end or no appreciation for the person’s
cooperation.”
“People said, ‘We’re as much against
crime as anybody,'” Miller said last week, “‘but we don’t want to be looked at
as suspects.'”
The lack of understanding cuts both
ways: Few people understand the stress under which police often work. Officers,
said Miller, repeatedly told the two: “You don’t know the abuse we take.” And
the report’s recommendations include the need for residents, clergy, and
community leaders to thank police for what they do right, and to support them.
Despite the
breadth and
general low-key approach, the Hargrave-Miller report
portrays a community badly in need of reform.
Hargrave
and Miller call for more interaction between police and the community: more
chances for officers to get together with residents, formally and informally.
They want officers to serve on community boards, to work with inner-city youths
through athletic leagues.
They want clergy and community
leaders to do more — to “be more forceful in speaking out against injustice
and the growing loss of life” — and to challenge the minority community to do
more to reduce violence.
They want the Rochester school
district to play a larger role: to work with the police department in such
areas as truancy, violence prevention, school suspensions, and dropouts. They
want schools to help teach students about their rights and responsibilities and
the rights of police officers. Despite their common interests and needs, says
the report, police and school-district officials rarely discuss how they can
work together.
They cite the concern of residents
and police that local media often focus on sensationalism, “too often
irresponsibly reporting in ways that raised tensions and anxieties that didn’t
exist by blowing stories out of proportion.”
A possible weakness of the report is
that Hargrave and Miller don’t prioritize the
extensive problems they cite or the recommendations they make. That is
consistent with their insistence that there’s no single solution to the
police-community divide, but it may blur the focus of their work.
Asked last week to name the most
important, immediate actions on which the community should focus, both Hargrave and Miller named police recruitment and training.
Following are highlights from the report, on police quality and other topics.
The entire study, with all of its recommendations, is available on the City of Rochester website,
www.cityofrochester.gov.
Police
‘quality’
Some of Hargrave and
Miller’s strongest and most specific criticisms focus on how the RPD recruits,
trains, and assigns its police officers. Their assessment:
• The police department spends far
too little money and effort recruiting new officers.
This is particularly significant,
because the department is failing to recruit enough African Americans and
Hispanics. For nearly 30 years, the city has been under a federal order because
of the racial imbalance of its police force. While it currently exceeds the
required 25 percent, for the past two years the percentage of new minority
recruits has been much smaller.
An adequate number of
African-American and Hispanic officers is crucial for
inner-city patrols, where there is long-standing distrust of police officers.
In addition, minority officers can serve as role-models for inner-city youth
and can help overcome distrust among white officers.
The minority community’s distrust of
police also makes it hard for the police department to attract new minority
officers. A strong recruitment effort, then, is essential. But the department
has only one fulltime recruitment person, and the annual budget for recruitment
is only $7000. And rather than recruiting from throughout the country, the department
limits its search to localities within about four hours’ drive from Rochester, unable to
spend enough money to interview candidates who live farther away.
• The screening and hiring process
for new recruits is dismayingly long.
The Civil Service exam is offered
only once a year, and tests and background checks are processed slowly. It may
be almost a year before applicants learn whether they passed the exam, and it’s
several more months before they can start training. Many people, says Miller,
aren’t willing to put a career on hold for that long.
• Hiring requirements are
eliminating potentially good prospects.
Only 10 percent of the present force
and new recruits are women, probably because of the toughness of the “agility”
and fitness tests.
In addition, the maximum age for new
recruits is 35. That keeps the department from recruiting older people who may
be more mature.
The police
training system, says the report, also has serious flaws.
• While the report praises the
initial training at the PoliceAcademy, that
training focuses on “weapons, tactics, and general procedures.” But “field”
training isn’t adequate. There’s too little training involving real-life
situations: too little role playing, too little training in how to deal with
people under the influence of drugs or who are mentally ill, too little
training on how to defuse confrontations with angry or emotional people, so
that officers don’t have to resort to force.
There’s not enough training in what
some officers may consider “soft” skills: “way too little on community
relations, good listening, and being sensitive to others, especially from
different cultures and backgrounds.”
In addition, the initial field
training is often done by young officers with relatively little experience
themselves. And the department seems to have no requirement for continuing
in-service training.
• The department provides little
management training for officers who are promoted to sergeant, captain, and
lieutenant. “When officers make sergeant,” says the report, “they receive
one-time four-week training in basic supervision,” and that’s it. And even that
short training focuses more on paperwork and discipline rather than on
management and leadership issues.
• There’s not enough interaction
with community leaders and residents “so that recruits are exposed to different
cultures and experiences,” says the report. “Such exposure can help recruits
see community residents as ‘people rather than only as suspects, and as
potential allies rather than enemies.'”
The
police union
For years, there has been tension between
police-department management and the Police Locust Club, the Rochester
police-officers union. Hargrave and Miller say the
resulting conflicts are “pervasive, deep, and affect virtually all aspects of
the work done within the department and all levels of employees throughout the
organization.” Some officers told Hargrave and Miller
that the union fosters distrust of management and is sometimes deliberately
obstructionist.
Hargrave
and Miller characterize the situation as “a constant struggle for the hearts
and minds of Rochester’s police
officers.” The tension affects morale, staffing assignments, discipline, and
the department’s attempts to reform policies and procedures. And it also
affects police-community relations.
Part of the problem, Hargrave and Miller say, is that all but the top level of
the RPD is in the union: officers, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. As a
result, supervisors are often reluctant to challenge or discipline officers,
who are fellow union members. Evaluations are considered “a joke.”
The department’s seniority system,
dictated by the union contract, also creates problems, the report says. Among
them: New recruits, “as the least experienced and least prepared, are among the
most likely ones to be placed in the most difficult and volatile situations in
the most difficult shifts.”
Also a problem: State law requires
binding arbitration when union-management negotiations have reached an impasse.
The hostility between the union and top RPD officials often prevents
compromise, and important decisions involving policy and procedure are made by
the arbitrator. And the arbitrator, says the report,
often tries to “balance wins for management and wins for the union.”
“In effect,” says the report, “there
is a three-legged stool of power”: the chief, the union, and the arbitrator,
with the public having little input or influence.
Police
oversight
For years, some activists have pushed for more
civilian review of police. Prior to 1977, all complaints about police
misconduct were handled solely by the police department itself. Following a
series of fatal police shootings of civilians, a study headed by the late
Charles Crimi recommended involvement of civilians in
the review of misconduct charges. That led to the current structure, in which a
civilian board reviews the records of police investigation into selected
misconduct cases. The board does not conduct independent reviews.
Hargrave
and Miller don’t call for increased civilian involvement; the current system
works well in general, they said, and they found no evidence that under it,
police misconduct is being ignored or police are being unfairly disciplined.
Hargrave
and Miller do suggest improvements. Citizens should be better informed about
what they can do when they have a complaint, says the report. The process
should be speeded up; currently, it can be more than a year before a complaint
is referred to the Civilian Review Board.
In addition, says the report, the
public should have better access to the results of investigation. And when
possible, “conciliation” — getting the two parties together with a mediator
to talk through the complaint — should be used to solve a problem.
Hargrave
and Miller don’t recommend giving the Civilian Review Board subpoena power.
They concluded that cities in which such boards have subpoena power, there have
been mixed results. And, Hargrave said last week, “we
don’t feel that would be productive — or possible.”
Drugs
One of the most far-reaching (and possibly
controversial) sections of the Hargrave-Miller report
is found about two-thirds of the way into the document: an assessment of the
community’s efforts to reduce the sale of illegal drugs.
Despite the enormous expense, Miller
and Hargrave say, the anti-drug efforts have not been
successful. Miller says he was struck during his interviews by “the frustration
the police feel.” Repeatedly, officers told him: “We’re not winning this.”
And yet, the report notes, “Sale of drugs
creates one of the most visible forms of conflict on an ongoing basis between
city police and citizens.”
Clearly, says the report, police can
not solve the community’s drug problem by themselves:
“Drugs are primarily a public health
issue, driven in poor neighborhoods by simple economics…. Sale of drugs
represents the major source of income for some families in various
neighborhoods, and the effects of drugs have had devastating implications for
many areas of the city…. Sale of drugs has
created a virtual ‘war zone’ of competitors and open sales in some areas,
leaving some residents afraid to leave their homes, and some dead. The abuse of
drugs has crippled families in various areas. And some neighborhoods have been
virtually stripped of adult males because of incarceration for drug-related
crimes.”
Although Drug Court has proved to
be an effective way to steer drug abusers into treatment rather than
imprisonment, the use of the court has been declining. “Several judges in both
courts have histories of rarely making referrals to the courts,” says the
report, and Hargrave and Miller recommend that such
judges be held publicly accountable.
Nor are there enough treatment
programs available, and Hargrave and Miller urge that
some of the money now spent on imprisoning people convicted of minor-drug
charges be used to create more treatment options.
What
next?
Will anything changebecause of the report? Tension between police and inner-city
residents is not new in Rochester. The
controversial 2001-2002 deaths of African Americans were not the city’s first.
Like the Crimi report of the 1970s, the Hargrave-Miller report spells out reforms that could make a
difference in Rochester. But the new
report doesn’t set out a plan for following up or for holding any part of the
community accountable.
In interviews last week, Hargrave and Miller said they hope their recommendations
will become an issue in next year’s mayoral campaign. And both said they hope
the report will lead to real change in the community.
“If we can just keep a dialogue
going…” said Miller. “If Hargrave-Miller does nothing
more than start communication,” he said, it will have been worth the effort put
into the report.
Dialogue may not be enough, though.
And even dialogue may be hard, given the intensity of emotions among some
African-American leaders and police. Maybe heightened dialogue between those
groups is the first place to start.
RIT’s John
Klofas, who studies police departments throughout the country and has been
involved in numerous studies of police and criminal justice in Rochester, says he
likes the report and its breadth. But, he adds: “It depends on somebody moving
forward with it. Someone needs to sort through it, say ‘We’re going to start
with this and this and this,’ and develop a structure to implement it.”
“It’s a great first report of a
series,” he suggests. “The second should be prioritization, and the third
implementation.”
“It would be a shame for something
more not to come out of this,” says Klofas, “but it’s not structured for
something more to come out of it. It’s the first step in what ought to be a
process.”
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2004.
