by Francis X. Clines, The New York Times
A year after Cincinnati was rocked by racial protests and street violence, a tentative agreement has been reached to avoid racial profiling by revamping the city police department’s methods of dealing with the public.
The agreement, hailed as a breakthrough by city leaders and African-Americans, was announced yesterday morning after an all-night negotiating session that capped a yearlong collaboration started by a civil rights lawsuit.
The tentative pact is still subject to formal approval by the separate negotiating organizations, including the city government, the police rank and file, the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union and blacks who had complained of police officers using excessive force in patrolling the streets.
“We think we have an agreement that will be a landmark for this city and for this nation,” said the Rev. Damon Lynch III, president of the Cincinnati Black United Front, which brought the racial profiling lawsuit with the A.C.L.U.
The full details of the agreement were not immediately made public. But officials involved said that, if properly enforced, the proposed changes would improve the police department’s openness with the public and more clearly define the circumstances and methods for proper use of force.
The proposal includes a court-sanctioned monitor to oversee the agreed upon changes in police training and patrolling. It also provides for a new Citizens Complaint Authority intended to allow the public a more responsive way of filing grievances against police officers.
“This is a historic moment for Cincinnati,” declared Mayor Charlie Luken, hailing the agreement as a national model for improving police-community relations.
Mayor Luken requested a Justice Department inquiry into the city’s policing methods last April after four days of street protests and violence followed the fatal shooting of a young black man by the police. The Justice Department recommendations for improving police methods eventually became part of the agreement.
The death that caused street protests and violence last year was the 15th African-American suspect killed by the police in five years; no white suspects were killed by the police in that period.
Even before that killing, the A.C.L.U. and Mr. Lynch had filed a racial profiling lawsuit.
The street protests, police confrontations and vandalizing of Cincinnati businesses brought national notoriety to the city. Mayor Luken ordered a night curfew to stem the violence and keep residents off the streets. Black civic leaders urged a boycott of the city’s convention services until progress could be seen in police-community relations.
The unusual collaborative process, conducted under federal court oversight, was an alternative to full-scale litigation. Negotiators sought a wide spectrum of proposals in interviews and meetings with 3,500 people, including police officers, residents of all ethnic groups and government officials. The canvassing was carried out by the Aria Group, a private organization that specializes in conflict management.
One question is how the tentative pact will be received by the rank-and -file union members of the Fraternal Order of Police. Union leaders complained a year ago that their members were unfairly accused by blacks. But union negotiators took part in the collaborative process that announced success yesterday. They offered no immediate estimate of how the membership would receive the tentative agreement.
Mayor Luken, who is white and was elected last November to a full term under the city’s new, stronger executive charter, recently chose a black woman, Valerie Lemmie, as the city manager.
Ms. Lemmie, who had been city manager in Dayton, was inaugurated on Tuesday, promising the City Council, “We are going to make a profound difference in the City of Cincinnati.” Then she bounded down the steps from the ceremony hand in hand with the police chief, Tom Streicher, who is white.
City leaders said another barometer of fresh optimism came at the end of the final round of 17 hours of negotiations. A sticking point was the question of whether the city would pay all the legal fees incurred in the racial profiling lawsuit. The solution, reached with relative ease, was the creation of Friends of the Collaborative to raise the needed $600,000 through private donations.