Columbus police are stingy with records of
police shootings, but reports indicate officers who pull the trigger
almost always get it right
Sunday, January 14, 2007
John Futty
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Columbus police officers who shoot someone are almost always justified
in the eyes of their supervisors.
Most 2006 cases, including two in November in which officers killed
suspects, are under review. In 112 shootings from 1996 through 2005, six
officers violated division policies, according to records reviewed by
The Dispatch. One was fired.
None of the 153 officers was charged with a crime. The 25 shootings that
resulted in deaths were reviewed by Franklin County grand juries;
nonfatal shootings are rarely reviewed independently as in some other
cities.
Police brass say the dearth of unjustified shootings reflects good
training and restraint by the city’s 1,870 officers. But few people,
even within police ranks, know case details or how often officers are
cleared because the division is so secretive. It routinely withholds all
but basic details. Even officers’ names are usually not disclosed until
a day or two after the incident.
The division can take years to fulfill simple records requests. To
conduct this study, The Dispatch filed its first request for public
records more than 2½ years ago.
"I don’t believe they are saying enough," said Officer James Scanlon,
who was involved in two shootings during the decade and a fatal shooting
in 1991, all as a member of the SWAT team. "There is a void."
An analysis of the 112 officer involved shootings from the past decade
found little evidence to refute that most were justified. The review
identified only four cases in which officers fired at a suspect under
the mistaken impression that the person was armed. All were ruled
justified.
Deadly-force expert Tom Aveni said that statistic "would suggest to me
that they are better than the national average. I’d have to say they’re
doing something right."
Too often, Scanlon said, the information void is filled by
misinformation and criticism from friends and relatives of those shot by
police. Officers, often traumatized by the experience, face additional
stress when they are second-guessed by the public without response from
police officials, he said.
"The brass could be more proactive by coming out with enough to counter
some of the misinformation, a few facts that would indicate the officers
did what they had to do," Scanlon said. "The facts are always going to
benefit us."
Lack of information is one of the biggest frustrations for relatives of
those who die in police shootings, said Fred Gittes, a Columbus
civil-rights lawyer.
"They are desperately trying to piece things together, but they are
operating in the dark," he said. "The police don’t even tell the family
as much as they tell (the media)."
Officer Jim Gilbert, a 10-year veteran who was involved in a fatal
shooting in 2000, was elected president of the local police union last
month with a campaign pledge to be a more vocal supporter of officers.
"It is up to the union to step up and speak for the officers involved
because the division has shown they’re not going to do it," said
Gilbert, who heads Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9.
Deputy Chief John Rockwell said police administrators have no choice but
to limit the information released while an officer-involved shooting is
under investigation.
"It’s a dilemma for us. We want to get information out as quickly as
possible, to put people at ease," he said, "but there are concerns about
jeopardizing the case."
In response to Dispatch questions raised during interviews for this
story, the division began issuing news releases last month to report the
outcome of its investigations of officer involved shootings.
Similar questions prompted Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien to say
that his office, which presents all fatal officer-involved shootings to
a grand jury, will issue news releases to announce grand-jury decisions.
Other communities do more. In Denver, which boasts of the most-open
officer-involved shooting protocol in the country, the district attorney
reviews police shootings that injure or kill someone and then issues a
letter explaining the case and whether charges will be filed. After an
internal investigation, the Denver public-safety manager issues a more
detailed report and says whether the shooting followed policy.
"We try to make the process as transparent as possible," said Chuck
Lepley, first assistant district attorney. "It’s for the protection of
the officer as much as anyone."
In Columbus, police have been slow to respond to requests for
information from past shooting investigations.
In August 2004, The Dispatch first asked to review the division’s
investigative files on police shootings, and it took 2½ years for the
division to make available all files from 2003 and 2004.
The Dispatch also filed a series of public-records requests in search of
a comprehensive accounting of the decade’s shootings. Some records from
the 1990s no longer exist, including many of the decision letters from
the Firearms Board of Inquiry, which reviews shootings by officers.
Aveni, co-founder of the Police Policy Studies Council in Spofford, N.H.,
said most police officials distrust the news media and resist providing
information about officer involved shootings.
"There is a mistaken belief that a lot of this stuff will be
misconstrued, and that when it appears in the media, it will paint a
negative picture of the way police use deadly force," he said.
"Just the opposite is true. Most studies show that the use of force is
very judicious and very infrequent."
Deadly force appears to be a last resort for Columbus officers. In 2005,
17 officer-involved shootings occurred — the highest annual total of the
decade. That year, one in every 68,548 Columbus police incidents
resulted in officers firing shots.
Officers reported using force 2,957 times that year. They fired their
weapons in less than one half of 1 percent of those cases.
The most fatal shootings by officers during one year in that decade was
six, in 2000. That number was matched in 2006, but those cases, along
with eight nonfatal shootings, were not included in the Dispatch review
because several remain under investigation.
A majority of the people shot at by police during the decade were black,
which is in line with the demographics encountered by officers
investigating violent crime, officials said.
"High-crime areas have a high population of blacks," said Columbus
Police Chief James G. Jackson, who is black.
Of the people shot at by officers during the decade whose identities
were available through public records, 64 percent were black, 32 percent
white, 2 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian.
Of the 25 who died, 12 were white, 11 black and two Hispanic.
Of the 153 officers involved in shootings during the decade, 88 percent
were white. The police force is 86 percent white, the safety director’s
office says.
Sgt. Dana Winship, a firearms supervisor, said the division strives to
provide firearms training for each officer four times a year. In
addition to shooting at stationary targets and qualifying with their
weapons annually, officers might be sent through a maze where they face
pop-up targets that represent threats, other officers or innocent
bystanders.
"It’s all about decision-making," he said. "Once you have identified a
threat, what is your next step? "
Whenever an officer shoots at someone, members of the division’s
Critical Incident Response Team investigate. The team of 10 experienced
homicide detectives and two sergeants was created more than a decade
ago.
"It used to be that some of these investigations were done by street
lieutenants with very little experience and few resources," said
detective James McCoskey, one of the team’s founding members. "Some of
those investigations got screwed up. We started talking about putting
together our most senior investigators (to give) street officers the
best investigations we can."
With oversight from the division’s internal affairs bureau, the team
interviews officers and all witnesses at the scene. Crime-scene and
ballistic specialists investigate all shootings, and the coroner’s
office investigates deaths.
The result is an investigative packet that can number hundreds of pages
and goes to the Firearms Board of Inquiry, which comprises three
commanders. In fatal shootings, the packet first goes to the
prosecutor’s office for grand jury review.
Firearms Board members offer an opinion about whether the shooting
followed policy. That opinion is reviewed by the officer’s chain of
command, with a deputy chief making the final decision.
Since 2000, the earliest year for which complete records are available,
the average investigation has taken nearly seven months. One case from
October 2005 is still being reviewed by the Firearms Board.
It’s worse elsewhere. In Cleveland, where the city law director decides
whether to file criminal charges, some cases languished so long that the
mayor called in a special prosecutor last year to review five shootings,
one of them 2 years old.
Columbus police officials say the length of their investigations results
from a thoroughness that makes a cover-up unlikely.
"There is so much oversight by so many different units within the
division, plus the coroner’s office and the prosecutor’s office when
there is a death," said Paul Denton, a former Columbus police commander
who became chief of the Ohio State University Police Department in
November. "You’d have to have a large conspiracy to think that anyone
could taint an investigation of that type."
Division policy permits officers to use deadly force when they "have
reason to believe the response is objectively reasonable to protect
themselves or others from the imminent threat of death or serious
physical harm."
And case law gives officers much leeway when they shoot because of a
perceived threat. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1989 Graham vs. Connor
decision, ruled that police actions must be judged against how a
reasonable officer would act under the same circumstances, "rather than
with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."
A 1994 ruling by the 4 th Circuit Court of Appeals said the court "will
not second-guess the split-second judgment of a trained police officer
merely because that judgment turns out to be mistaken, particularly
where inaction could result in death or serious injury to the officer or
others."
Gittes, a frequent critic of police misconduct, conceded that most
officer-involved shootings are justified.
"Other kinds of force are a much bigger problem," he said. "Officers are
more willing to use other kinds of force because the consequences are
not as serious."
He is among those who say a citizen-review commission is the only way to
ensure public confidence in investigations of deadly force.
"Police policing the police doesn’t work very well," he said. "And a
grand jury isn’t a substitute for an independent review. It’s all done
in secret."
Division and FOP leaders have opposed a citizen commission, and only a
minority of City Council members have expressed interest in the idea.
"I believe it can be a useful tool if done the right way," said
Councilman Kevin Boyce. "So far, there hasn’t been the right proposal."
Scanlon said the current system is daunting enough that it likely causes
officers to hesitate before pulling the trigger.
"In this day and age, the aftermath is in the back of the officer’s
mind," he said. "They know what they’ll go through. You hope that
officers put that out of their mind in a deadly force situation, but
it’s always there."
Rockwell said the restraint shown by officers who find themselves in
potentially life threatening situations is difficult to measure.
"How many officers could use deadly force and don’t? " he asked. "There
is no statistic for that."
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