By S. Durm

Leslie Blade's December 2003 story on off-duty assignments pointed to widespread problems.

The leadership and operation of the Cincinnati Police Department again came under fire last week, with a federal magistrate criticizing commanding officers, an audit showing sloppy financial practices and a complaint to state labor officials alleging the police union is encouraging a work slowdown.

As if to illustrate how much hasn't changed in the police department since 2001, when an uprising in Over-the-Rhine spurred reform initiatives, a shooting by police at week's end again raised questions about the use of force by officers. This time the suspect didn't die, but both of the officers involved had been involved in earlier shootings, one of them fatal.

With council and mayoral elections approaching, civilian control and reform of the police department is once more shaping up as a major issue for Cincinnati leaders.

The chief's ill manner
Calling the police department's behavior "rude and obstructive," U.S. Magistrate Michael Merz last week ruled the city of Cincinnati is in material breach of the collaborative agreement on police reform.

Late last year Lt. Col. Richard Janke insulted a member of the monitoring team that oversees the reform agreement. Police Chief Thomas Streicher threw a federal monitor out of police headquarters.

In his Jan. 26 ruling, Merz found that police had violated the city's agreement to give the monitoring team unimpeded access to police personnel and documents. He recommended that U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott elevate the terms of the collaborative agreement to the status of a court order. Doing so could lead to fines or jail time in the event of future violations of the reform agreement.

Merz said that Streicher's and Janke's behavior by itself justified finding the city in violation. The magistrate pointedly reminded the city that the members of the monitoring team are to be treated with respect and cooperation.

In a hearing on the monitors' complaint, lawyers for the city agreed that Streicher and Janke had done just what the monitors accused them of.

"Much more serious are the incidents between the command staff and the monitor team members early in December," Merz's ruling says. "At one point in its motion papers, the city characterized Lt. Col. Janke's comment to (a monitor) that he had just asked the stupidest question Col. Janke had ever heard as 'candid expression of frustration.' The court would, on the contrary, characterize it as rude and obstructive. Then on Dec. 3, 2004, Chief Streicher revoked permission for a ride-along by (a monitor) and literally ejected her from police headquarters.

"The members of the monitoring team are all officers of this court, appointed as special masters by Judge Dlott. Their treatment by the two top officers in the manner just described -- which the city has agreed actually happened -- cannot be taken lightly. Those incidents alone would make it clear the monitoring team needs the support of this court which the entering the collaborative agreement as a court order will give."

'No one is monitoring'
After delays caused by police department resistance and a prosecutor's subpoena, a city audit of police overtime found practices that almost seem to invite abuse. Substantial sums of money are involved -- in 2003 alone the city spent $6.8 million in overtime pay to officers and $1.9 million in compensatory time.

But the lack of adequate scheduling and coordination systems means overtime is inadequately managed, according to the audit. For example, two years ago a new system for tracking overtime was established, but it goes largely unused.

"Two years ago the CPD Fiscal and Budget Section began a database, which tracked overtime expenses to determine compliance with received grant monies," the audit report says. "Overtime reports can be generated from this database, but have not been requested on a regular basis by management. Further, this database does not track vacation, holiday, sick and most importantly does not track compensatory time."

Thanks to a generous contract with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Cincinnati officers can reap a bonanza in overtime pay for court appearances.

"Under the current contract provisions, an officer could be paid five hours for a 15-minute testimony," the audit report says.

Auditors found that, thanks to overtime and off-duty assignments, 44 police officers earned in excess of $90,000 in 2003; 19 of them earned more than $100,000.

City Councilman Christopher Smitherman called for the audit in late 2003 after a CityBeat investigation pointed to widespread problems in the management of police officers' off-duty assignments (see "Protection Racket," issue of Dec. 10-16, 2003). As with those off-duty jobs, the overtime audit found some instances of officers reportedly being two places at one time.

More common is violation of a police department policy that forbids officers to work more than 16 hours in one day. The audit found one officer who broke the rule more than two dozen times in 2003.

"It has been determined that no one is accurately monitoring the 16-hour rule, as should be done," the audit report says.

The audit isn't the first time deficiencies in the police department's overtime and compensatory time practices have been highlighted. In 1991, Police Chief Larry Whalen retired with $179,000 in his pocket for accumulated compensatory time.

The city now faces a large unfunded liability, auditors found. As of June 2004, the citywide compensatory time balance had an estimated value of $22.1 million, of which $15.8 million or 71 percent was for police officers. But the Compensatory Time Reserve Fund had a total of only $7.3 million.

"Due to budget constraints, no monies have been transferred into this fund for several years," the report says.

Hope of the past
Allegations of a police slowdown aren't new either. In the aftermath of the 2001 riots, traffic citations, arrests and other indices of police activity declined while violent crime soared. Many attributed the department slowdown to poor morale in the face of widespread criticism of police.

Last week the city filed a complaint of unfair labor practices, accusing the FOP of encouraging officers to go slow on the job to protest stalled contract negotiations. To bolster its claim, the city's attorneys cited police statistics for December 2004, showing a 38 percent drop in parking tickets and a similar decline in traffic tickets.

The start of the new year hasn't meant a new start in police-community relations. Magistrate Merz's ruling quoted Mayor Charlie Luken's statement at the time the collaborative agreement was approved.

"I think it is, as previously described, a wonderful document," Luken said at the time. "And I believe it might be titled 'hope' in the sense that it represents a great deal of hope for me, for our citizens, that we can get to a better day, get to a better level of respect and accountability and trust in one another."

Four years later, that hope remains unfulfilled. ©