Why does this keep happening? Experts discuss why Columbus has so many police shootings
As the community reels from the death of 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant – the latest in a series of high-profile fatal shootings by police – activist Kiara Yakita is not surprised that another Black person has been shot and killed by an officer.
"Columbus is a tale of two cities," she said.
In the wake of Bryant’s death – and the four other Black people who have been killed by law enforcement in Franklin County since Dec. 4 – Yakita, the founder of the Black Liberation Movement Central Ohio, has been calling for a reckoning between Columbus police and the Black community.
"Protect Black people like you protect these white suburbanites," she said. "You care about them, you know how to disarm them, you know how to approach them."
The trauma of watching another person of color die at the hands of police in central Ohio has prompted the city to ask itself: Why does this keep happening in Columbus?
The answer, according to experts in racial justice and civilian-policing relations, lies in what they see as a lack of internal accountability within law enforcement agencies and historic distrust between communities of color and the police.
Those issues could be explored in a "racial bias" review of Columbus police by the Department of Justice if it agrees to a request made this week by Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and City Attorney Zach Klein.
That request comes on the heels of the publication of a city-commissioned review of last year's protests in Columbus following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. The study, released this week, recommended the city and police department reconcile with communities of color to address "distrust, anger and fear directed towards the police."
And while that chasm between the community and the police isn't unique to Franklin County, it does appear to be particularly evident here.
Consider that in the last year, police in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) have fatally shot a combined total of two people – a stark contrast to the five people shot and killed by law enforcement in Franklin County during the last five months alone.
The Dispatch reported in February that Franklin County has one of the highest rates of fatal police shootings in Ohio and is among the highest in the nation, according to a study conducted by the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health and Ohio University.
Those findings, which examined fatal police shootings across the country over six years, showed that Franklin County has the 18th highest rate among the 100 most populous counties in the country, based on an average annual fatality rate. Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County ranked 56th and Hamilton County ranked 61st. Cook County, Illinois – home to much of Chicago, the third largest city in the nation – ranked 64th, according to the study.
Study:Franklin County has one of highest rates of fatal police shootings in Ohio and the U.S.
OU professor and data analytics expert Anirudh Ruhil said these statistical disparities should force people to reexamine what’s happening in Columbus.
“I’m not blaming all officers,” he said. “But I just think that we have to look and ask: Is it something about our culture? Is it because there aren’t enough consequences? Or are these shootings really justified, and every jury that finds otherwise has no clue about policing?”
Should the DOJ take another look at CPD?
Additional oversight of the Columbus Division of Police has been a common refrain in conversations about police reform.
Columbus just named the first nine members of its inaugural police civilian review board – approved by 74% of voters in November — which will hire an inspector general who will in turn hire a staff to conduct investigations focusing on allegations of police misconduct and excessive use of force.
But civilian review boards are not the only option for oversight.
University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman explained that many cities and their local law-enforcement agencies enter into agreements with the Department of Justice, called consent decrees, which are designed to reform police departments following a federal investigation of civil rights violations.
Ginther did not request a full-fledged investigation, but if the DOJ agrees to review the Columbus police for "racial bias" and civil rights violations are found, it could lead to additional oversight.
"After an investigation, federal law gives the DOJ power to actually bring a lawsuit against a local police department agency, seeking what’s called a permanent injunction, a court-ordered relief that says here’s what you need to do to address and remedy years-long violations," Futterman said.
Cuyahoga County and Hamilton County have operated under consent decrees in the last 20 years, following high profile shootings and excessive use of force complaints.
And while Columbus police were the subject of a federal investigation — and subsequent lawsuit against the city — for civil rights violations in 1996, a consent decree was never formed here.
Then-mayor Greg Lashutka’s administration proposed a series of reforms, including employing three outside agencies to monitor police as part of consent decree between the city and the DOJ.
The Fraternal Order of Police objected to the parameters of Lashutka’s proposed consent decree in 1999, and when Mayor Michael B. Coleman took office in 2000, the city addressed several key reform measures. These included: revamping the process to file complaints against police, installing police-cruiser cameras, increasing training and adding more manpower to the Internal Affairs Bureau that investigates officer complaints. Those changes persuaded the DOJ to drop its lawsuit in 2002.
In an interview with The Dispatch on Tuesday, Coleman said federal oversight at the time was not warranted.
“A thorough monitor would have required a consent decree and would not have changed the outcome overall,” Coleman said. “The issues then are different than those today – we were dealing with racial profiling, not fatal shootings. And the justice department agreed with us that we had taken the steps necessary to deal with these issues.”
Sgt. James Fuqua, a spokesperson for the Columbus Division of Police, said it’s hard to predict whether an official consent decree or outside monitor 20 years ago could have prevented the department’s high rate of fatal shootings today.
“It’s the million dollar question,” he said. “Universally, I can tell you, we truly understand people are tired — not just Black people — it’s everyone locally who has a heart. We acknowledge we have to find out a way to help the community heal.”
Use of force trickles down from fatal shootings to profiling
Excessive use of force is disproportionately used on people of color, experts say, and those very issues could be part of upcoming investigations in Columbus. But it won't be the first time that's been the case in recent years.
In August 2019, Ginther hired The Matrix Consulting Group to review CPD and make recommendations, and its report showed a "significant disparity" between how force was used and how often it was used against Black residents versus non-Black residents, The Dispatch reported.
The recent Ohio University study that measures fatal shootings by county found that Franklin County, home to one-fifth, or 20% of the state's Black population, accounts for 33% of deaths of African Americans shot by law enforcement in Ohio.
Fatal shootings are the most extreme manifestation of racist use of force, say some experts, who argue that Black people are beaten dozens of times, searched hundreds of times and profiled thousands of times before someone is killed.
Lt. Melissa McFadden, a 24-year veteran of the Columbus Division of Police, self-published a memoir on Amazon last year, “Walking the Thin Black Line: Confronting Racism in the Columbus Division of Police," about her experiences as a Black female officer. She has been saying for years that there is racism among the agency's ranks.
Speaking on her own behalf and not as a representative of the department, McFadden suggested bias and professional police training may explain why so many Columbus residents have died at the hands of officers charged with protecting them.
"The officers at CPD are historically recruited from mostly white communities, arrive at the job with the implicit racial bias that everyone has, and are then indoctrinated by the police academy to believe that Black people are the criminals," McFadden said. "This happens by shooting at Black targets, watching training videos with Black suspects and seeing how we police Black communities differently than other communities."
That indoctrination into a culture that associates young, Black men with threats is well-supported by research, Futterman said, explaining that police departments with the greatest incidents of fatal shootings train their officers to be afraid of others.
"The more there is that thin blue line — that culture of everybody is out to get us and nobody gets us — the more likely officers are to see the very folks they are supposed to serve as 'others,'" he said.
How can we move forward?
The path forward is complicated by a community split into silos: protesters, police, and elected officials.
Local activists, like Yakita and the Black Liberation Movement’s vice president Davante Goins, are in favor of electing new city officials, cleaning house at city council and hiring a police chief who values Black lives.
"Their day is coming in November, because time and time again, they say they have the backs of the Black community, but they only have our backs when they have our votes,” Goins said. “And they will not get our votes come November."
City Council president Shannon Hardin and current council member Mitchell J. Brown, who was Coleman’s public safety director, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Coleman commended Ginther and city council for navigating the last five months of tension but suggested there was room for the Justice Department to step in as a consultant to Columbus police.
"I don't see it as an investigation; I see it as working together,” he said. “Back in my day, I used DOJ concerns to leverage what I needed to get done inside the city, and it was an adversarial situation then — they came in with a lawsuit. But the difference is now, if they came in as an advisor, we should welcome it.”
Whatever steps are taken, including federal oversight that could lead to a consent decree, Futterman said, they should include the Black community.
“For a (consent) decree of even having the hope of success in transforming a police department and eliminating civil rights violations," he said, "it’s critical that people who are most impacted have not just a seat at the table, but an empowered seat with the ability to monitor and oversee the implementation of the decree.”
Dispatch reporters Ceili Doyle and Danae King contributed reporting to this story.