Cleveland should take an invaluable lesson from its decision to pay a settlement of $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who was killed by police after playing with a realistic-looking toy gun in a city park.
City officials must use the federal consent decree process aimed at reforming the Cleveland police to do their utmost to improve the recruiting, training, oversight and equipping of its police force. Otherwise, there will be other unnecessary tragedies, other families will suffer and the city will continue to have to pay out money that it can ill afford. Clearly, the consent decree is the better deal for all.
Millions of reasons to fix the Cleveland police: Here are a few.
Editorial
April 26, 2016
Cleveland's decision to pay out $6 million to Tamir Rice's family, two years after the 12-year-old was shot to death by police, ought to serve as an expensive warning to the cash-strapped city — if it needs one by now — that it can't afford these kind of horrific deaths or these kind of eye-popping financial payouts.
The city did not admit to any fault in agreeing to the settlement, but it has plenty it needs to address. It desperately needs to reform the police department’s hiring and training practices, and it must successfully implement an ongoing federal consent decree aimed at improving the police department and making it more accountable to the public.
Photo by Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer
Next slide: Better vetting and training a key to a competent police force
Better vetting and training a key to a competent police force
The truth is, if the Cleveland police had done a better job vetting and training its police officers and its dispatchers, Tamir, who was foolishly playing in a park with a replica gun, might still be alive. And budget-constricted Cleveland, which needs every dollar to finance the needed upgrades to its police, ought also to be critically aware that it just doesn't have the deep pockets to continue to pay out to citizens to settle such lawsuits.
The best solution in the long run is to create a police department that is competent, professional and fair to everyone. A better-trained and better-equipped police force with proper oversight and accountability will still make mistakes from time to time. But that improved training and supervision should help improve police-community relations and reduce egregious errors that lead to the death and injury of citizens -- followed by huge payouts.
Photo by Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer
Next slide: A tragedy of errors
A tragedy of errors
That police force wasn't in evidence when Tamir was shot to death in 2014 in a park outside of Cudell Recreation Center after playing with a realistic-looking toy gun. It didn't help that police dispatch had failed to relay information from a caller who said Tamir looked like a juvenile and that the gun was probably a toy.
The public learned later that Timothy Loehmann, the police officer who shot Tamir, had received poor feedback from his superiors at the Independence Police Department and that the Cleveland police department had not reviewed his damning personnel file before hiring him, a colossal error. Loehmann shot the youngster about two seconds after the police car driven by his partner Frank Garmback rolled to a stop on snow-slicked ground in the park. Neither officer gave Tamir first aid until a federal agent arrived and rushed in to provide it.
After an extensive investigation and grand jury probe, a Cuyahoga County grand jury decided not to indict either police officer, prompting protests and costing Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty his job in March when he failed to win renomination on the Democratic ballot.
Photo by Brandon Blackwell and Evan McDonald
Next slide: $6 million is crude compensation for the death of a youngster
$6 million is crude compensation for the death of a youngster
Let’s make it clear: The $6 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by Tamir’s family against the city of Cleveland is crude compensation for his short life.
His family still feels his loss daily; so do, we suspect, his friends and teachers and neighbors. Losing a child is unimaginable; losing a child to a police shooting in a city park is horrific in another sense. Most children return home after a day in the park. Tamir did not. And that still must hurt.
Photo by Lynn Ischay
Next headline: Cleveland's consent decree can help
Cleveland's consent decree can help create a well-trained police department
Cleveland must focus now on how to avoid unnecessary police shootings like this one. The city has started that process by negotiating a consent decree with the federal government to reform its police department and make it more accountable, fair, skilled and well-equipped. As that reform takes root, Cleveland must work with Matthew Barge, the Cleveland police consent decree monitor, and others, to build the infrastructure that leads to a police division that becomes a role model for others.
Photo by Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer
Next slide: Let the city discipline police officers
Let the city discipline police officers
Part of that accountability must be the ability of the city to discipline police officers in a fair and consistent way, something that rigid union rules, the Ohio courts and arbitrators too often thwart. Just recently, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals agreed with an arbitrator's decision that the city improperly fired a Cleveland police officer who was convicted of stabbing her boyfriend in 2012.
She got her job back because the appeals court said that the arbitrator followed the law by pointing to other cases where police officers convicted of domestic abuse had been able to keep their jobs. Would a truck driver get the same kind of breaks? Probably not.
Photo by Ryllie Danylko, cleveland.com
Next slide: Tamir case is an important object lesson
Tamir case is an important object lesson
This $6 million payout in Tamir’s case must be an object lesson in the importance of creating a fair and competent police division where well-trained officers know how to do their jobs, follow the law and respect the community. The decree comes too late to help Tamir, but if it is well-executed, it will help others.
The stakes are high. The city, its police department, police unions and the community, the courts and consent-decree monitor must now work together, expeditiously but with focus and determination, to create the hard but needed changes. Not just money, but lives are on the line.
Photo by Alex Slitz, New York Times
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