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- Good afternoon and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland.

It's Friday, October 22nd.

And I'm Mark Naymik a reporter at WKYC channel three.

I will be your moderator for today's forum, which is part of the criminal justice series in partnership with The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation.

In just 11 days, if my math is correct, Clevelanders will have a chance to vote on issue 24, a proposed amendment to the city's charter.

It would shift oversight of the police department, including policy and discipline of officers to a civilian led board and commission.

It has become a fault line, not only among some set of citizen activists and police officials, but between the two candidates for mayor.

Backers of issue 24, including candidate Justin Bibb say the amendment is needed to improve transparency and accountability within the police department, which in turn could improve trust between officers and residents and make the city safer.

Opponents, including candidate council president Kevin Kelly say the changes give too much discretion to civilians and not trained safety officials, which will undermine the city's ability to effectively and efficiently manage their department.

They say it will set off costly legal challenges and fuel early police retirements.

Now that's a pretty big divide and that's where The city club of Cleveland comes in today.

We hope to break down some of the major parts of issue 24 and examine how they impact the operations of the police department, affect the current federal oversight of the department and what it means for residents.

Today's discussion is about policy, not politics.

And now I will introduce the folks joining me on stage.

I'll start to my immediate left Subodh Chandra founding and managing partner of The Chandra Law Firm.

Subodh is the principal drafter of issue 24.

He is a former city of Cleveland law director and private practice.

He's handled numerous civil rights cases and has represented the mother and a state of Tamir Rice, the 12 year old boy shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014.

He's also represented this city workers and police officers whose civil rights have been violated.

And he serves on the Ohio Advisory Committee to the US commission on civil rights.

Next to him is Barbara Langhenry.

She is the city of Cleveland law director, longest serving as earlier noted.

She has represented the city of Cleveland as a lawyer in the law department since 1990.

She was the chief counsel from 2006 through 2011, when she was named law director.

Prior to working for the city, Barbara worked in private practice as a litigator.

She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University.

Also next to Barbara is Prentiss Haney.

He is co-executive director at the Ohio Organizing Campaign.

He is a veteran community organizer and strategist whose work has been featured in The Guardian on MSNBC and The Daily Beast.

He is a 2018 graduate of The Rockwood Leadership Institute and the 2019 transforming justice fellow with the Ohio Transformation Fund.

Prentiss earned his bachelor of arts in urban affairs at Wright State University outside of Dayton.

And finally, we go to Johnny Hamm, a Cleveland captain and resident of the city.

Johnny, is supervisor in multiple police districts and a police academy instructor.

He's a certified law enforcement executive by the Ohio Law Enforcement Foundation and an Ohio Police Officer Training Academy, certified instructor.

He has a master's degree in justice administration, a bachelor's degree in political science and criminal justice.

I know those were long winded, but I think it's important to give that deep background because so much of those backgrounds intersect with the issue here today.

So with that, we are going to jump in and get into the outlining of what issue 24 does.

And I wanna start with Subodh who, again, one of the principle drafters.

If you could outline for us the main thrust of this, what it does, and we will circle back to the interpretation on how this affects law, but right now just set the table for us and as briefly as possible and we'll move along.

There is no timer on the answers, but if we get too long-winded, I'll pull out that hammer again.

- Thank you Mark.

Putting it very simply issue 24, The Police Reform Initiative sponsored by Citizens for a Safer Cleveland is about ensuring greater police accountability.

It is about ensuring that civilian values prevail, that civilians have the opportunity to manage our division of police and ensure that officers are held accountable when they don't color inside the lines.

When they violate the constitution, when they abuse their authority.

Police officers are entrusted with badges and guns.

And that, when they are doing their jobs, makes us safer.

But when they're abusing their authority, that doesn't make us safer.

So what we've done with issue 24, what the ballot initiative does is simply add an additional layer of civilian authority between the police and the arbitration process for issues of discipline.

So that if it turns out that the chief, as has happened many times, if the chief of police doesn't discipline officers who need to be disciplined, including officers who've engaged in racist conduct, and this has happened, where the chief gives them a slap on the wrist and does nothing about it.

Now you have civilians who say, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not how we're gonna do business in the city of Cleveland.

That is the primary thrust of issue 24.

There have been the naysayers and the critics are all trying to figure out ways to scare the population into thinking it's gonna somehow do all kinds of crazy things.

It's all nonsense.

And what it is, is a group of people who've been used to being able to get away with anything they want finally being told, no there's going to be active supervision and we're gonna make sure that the values of the division of police in the way police officers engage with the public, reflect the values of the civilian population.

- Thank you Subodh.

Barbara, your job is definitely translating the charter and its influence on city operations for the mayor and others at city hall.

If you could walk us through the major changes to that charter that this would bring out.

We know really the main thing is a police commission in citizen's review board, which would become all above the police chief and safety director, so go ahead.

- Thank you, Mark.

I think we can all agree that police accountability is important, but it's also important to see what vehicle, the details of this vehicle that's being proposed.

And those are important details.

And I think we need to understand that the charter provision addresses two different boards.

The police review board and its staff, the office of professional services.

They are currently in existence and have been part of the charter since 1988.

And this charter expands their role a little bit more and provides other kinds of authority for them.

It creates brand new to our charter, a Community Police Commission, which has not existed in the charter before.

The consent decree was signed in may of 2015.

And under the consent decree, a Community Police Commission was created.

And that commission is advisory.

And the sole role is to advise the police chief and the police on community issues and to be a formal conduit to the community.

Certainly the police have contact with the community in many other ways and they spend time going to community meetings and block club meetings.

But this was a more formal vehicle to bring the views of the community, to the police and especially to have a role in advising on changes that were outlined in the consent decree.

The charter provision makes the Community Police Commission permanent and it gives them authority that goes well beyond advising.

And well beyond just being the final authority on discipline.

It also makes them the final authority on policies within the police division.

On recruiting and hiring currently under the charter, recruiting and hiring is the province of the civil service commission.

And the civil service commission is five voters in the city of Cleveland.

And it's a nonpartisan board.

There can be no more than two members from any political party.

They are the ones who established tests for all of the employees in the city.

They establish the job duties for all the employees in the city.

This would give the Community Police Commission final authority over those things, taking it away from a civil service commission.

They're also the final authority on policies, the police and how the police behave.

Generally the chief issues, what are called general police orders on the conduct of police and like any boss, the police has given that authority, the chief is given that authority under the direction of the mayor and the safety director, this takes that policy-making role away from the chief, the mayor and the safety director, and gives it to this police commission.

In addition to that, it mandates a budget for both the police commission and the police review board.

And that again is something very different from the current charter.

On the current charter, under the current charter, the mayor does what's called a mayor's estimate.

And it's a very detailed document with requirements on expected expenditures, justification for those expenditures, a comparison to two years prior.

And then the council has very public meetings on the budgeting of the city's resources.

And if it makes changes, it actually has to specifically show what those changes were to the mayor's estimate.

This eliminates that step for both the police commission and the police review board.

The commission is given a $1 million budget and in addition to that, they are given 0.5% of whatever the division of police's budget is, which last year was $218 million.

So that would be $1.09 million to give is grants.

And generally, in addition to that, it gives their executive director authority to enter into contracts and spend that money.

Generally in the current charter, if someone in the city wants to spend money above $50,000, they're required to go to council and get authority to do that.

And they have to justify why they want that money in a very public hearing.

And there is no mention in the charter provision of needing additional authority either to give those grants or to spend money for the commission itself.

They also, I'm sorry.

- Go ahead.

I just wanna keep you moving.

Cause we'll going to circle back on a couple of those issues you just mentioned in there.

- Yeah.

It also mandates the composition of both the commission and the police review board, certain members of those boards.

For example, the current police review board is required to have a member from each police district.

That's gone and we're now mandated to have two lawyers who have either prosecuted police officers or represented families in civil rights cases against police officers.

For the police commission itself, it's mandated there be two members who represent civil rights organizations.

And then there's some other factors of types of members that are required to be on that board.

There's also a provision that if anyone fails to cooperate with the police commission, who is within the city, they may be subject to discipline or censure, or if they interfere.

And there's no definition of what fails to cooperate means or what interfere means.

Now there's been discussion that this board could fire the mayor.

I wanna take that off the table.

That's not true.

The mayor is an elected official.

The mayor would not be able to be removed by this board.

So that... Just I don't want that to be a part of this discussion.

In addition to that, if either the police review board or the commission, and remember we're talking about two boards, don't like the advice that the law department has given because they feel like it's in conflict with what they wanna do, they're allowed to hire their own lawyers at the law departments budget.

So it's really kind of an increase in their own budget and they can hire their own lawyers.

The current charter gives the law director, the authority to represent all the departments and entities in the city.

- Thank you.

- Those are the major changes.

- And again, we're gonna circle back to Subodh in a moment to address a couple of those.

But I wanna again, keep working backwards so that we will talk to Prentiss now, who's more on the ground to talk to us a bit about how this came to be in Cleveland and you are from Cincinnati, so explain that role and a little bit about the money and why that matters and doesn't matter in this, but how did we get here to this stage today?

- Yes.

So, you know, we know that there has been a number of families who unfortunately have lost their loved ones to police involved shootings.

You know, even 20 years ago, there's folks like Brenda Bickerstaff has lost her brother, Craig Bickerstaff 20 years ago, who has been fighting to figure out how to actually bring real accountability in the city.

And so the families who have been working for years in a number of different efforts, working through, you know, through their work in advocacy, trying to change policies, when the consent decree came down in 2015 and we know that's not the first consent decree that's come to the city, they worked in good faith to make sure that they can see a real change in the city.

But what they realized pretty soon after that was that there was not much that they could do differently because there was no teeth behind the changes that came under the consent decree, including the current Cleveland Police Commission.

And so those families and specifically, Brenda Bickerstaff, Samaria Rice, who lost human rights in 2014, Alicia Kirkman who lost her son to a precinct law shooting in 2007 and then LaTonya Goldsby, who's a cousin of Tamir Rice said it enough, is enough.

And it's time for us to actually figure out a real path for real accountability.

And also a real partnership with the department of public safety to make sure that we can move forward in that way.

So it's actually been a multi-year effort and the most serious alignment of this group started two years ago when they started to have conversations about what are the sort of fault lines, what are the things that are falling apart in the current construction that consent decree, the current structure of the Cleveland police commission, what are the ways in which accountability is not actually being achieved?

And because these women have been working for so long, they have been talking to people around the nation in Seattle and San Diego and all across the nation and figuring out what are the ways in which accountability is not met.

And how do we actually craft a policy that meets the needs of what the families and what the communities and the residents of Cleveland want to see happen.

And so they decided that this was the right path forward.

And because these women have relationships across the state of Ohio, across the nation, we know like for example, we know Miss Samaria Rice has relationships nationally.

We know that Alicia Kirkman is a part of a national ending police brutality groups.

They called in the reinforcements to support the families and the citizens of Cleveland to make sure that we can draft this policy.

So once the ball became in as the author of this, as someone I think is actually really beautiful because the bowl was the law director and during the time that Bickerstaff was killed.

Having a family member who had to go through this process and is working together to figure out a policy on how the city and families and residents can work together.

It's actually how democracy works.

And so when they crafted this policy, we intentionally looked for all the ways in which accountability is not met.

And we made sure that we were able to meet those places.

So when it comes to the resources, there are all sorts of supporters of these families in Cleveland, across the state and across the nation.

And so those families has asked folks to show up for them because so often those families have not been heard.

They've have not have people shown up and fight for those families.

And we know that most Clevelands actually want to play a role in public safety.

And so right now, issue 24 is a combination of those families, residents of Cleveland, community activists coming together saying that it's time for us to actually have real accountability in a real partnership around public safety so we can make Cleveland safer for everyone.

- Thank you for that.

That's helpful background some stuff I didn't know and appreciate the connection.

Johnny, let's talk now on that final level, on the ground as a police officer and as a captain.

So you see this on a lot of ways.

What is your view of this and specifically how that potential change of chain of command is under this policy?

Where right now it's the chief and safety director.

Now it could be a civilian led commission.

What's your, view on this?

And where do you stand?

- Well, I'm gonna add something to what you talked about my bio.

I also was part of the 2018 charter review commission in which I went over the entire charter, you know, front to back.

We offered recommendations for changes for that.

I also spent four and a half years writing policy for the Cleveland Division of Police.

So I got a lot of experience with our policy and how policy should be written.

And also I am a Cleveland resident.

I am up here speaking as a Cleveland resident and not speaking on behalf of the city of Cleveland or the division of police.

I need to make that clear.

But as for when I first saw this initiative, which it probably about April or the time I started getting wind of it and started looking up the information.

And then when finally seeing the actual document, as a policy writer, it is confusing.

What it looked like was somebody took a lot of ideas.

Some of them good ideas.

I don't wanna say it's all bad.

And I hope we get back to that discussion about, you know, what can work in the future and what we may wanna look at differently.

But there were some issues in there of consistency in language.

At some one time, there's a reference to the safety director and the executive director of our executive head of the police force.

They're the same person, but the referenced in different sections as being almost two separate entities and they're not.

There's also references to termination and dismissal and censure.

It doesn't let anyone know what that means.

Is a dismissal of somebody different than a termination?

Is a dismissal something where like, I could be dismissed from my captain position, but I'm not terminated from the police force?

And there's a lot of questions in this document.

- In broad strokes though, Johnny, how do you see this affecting the operations of the Cleveland police, specifically command structure?

- How I see it as, and I'm actually gonna quote Mr. Chandra here.

Issue 24 is a Trojan Horse that has police accountability and oversight written over top of it.

And there during a safety committee meeting over issue 24 a week or week and a half ago, Mr. Chandra stated, what we are doing here is a fundamental structural change in government.

That's what's inside the Trojan Horse.

So police accountability, everybody's on board for that.

Everybody loves it.

Everybody says, hey, let's get on board.

And the Cleveland police officer right now is the most accountable person.

The most accountable entity in the city of Cleveland that works for the government.

There are so many checks and balances and oversight right now.

It's never happened in the history before.

And there is a level of comfort and consistency to know that, especially when I was a policy writer, that I would write something and it would go through the chain of command and come back to us and go back and come back to us to read, till we could come up with the final product that the chief would sign.

I don't know now because of this charter amendment.

Now, do we... Is the CPC a civilian commission gonna be coming in and overseeing all of that now.

Will they sit at that table and tell us what our traffic stop policies should be?

How can we have that happen if it's in violation of what state law says, or there's just too many, too many questions and too many issues that draws up concerns.

And right now, if you don't trust the mayor to pick an appropriate safety director and police chief, then why do you expect the mayor and council to select an appropriate CPC commission that would ensure the perfect fairness overall.

It's either you trust them or you don't.

- Thank you.

Subodh, let's have you jump in on a couple of issues raised by the city here.

One is on policy.

Who, you know, does this leave too much to your commission that would be created under this and about some of these issues in language that they think is too broad or is gonna create a lot more problems than it solves?

- Well, to be clear, it's not my commission.

It would be the people's commission appointed by the mayor and appointed by the council members and accountable to that.

So what, what it will do...

If you think about how government actually works in Cleveland and in any large community, the mayor is the chief executive.

Doesn't have the time to micromanage the mistakes that may be occurring in any of the departments.

And the issue that we have in Cleveland is that as a result of not having that time, the mayor hasn't had a group of people that he can entrust to oversee the safety director and the police chief when they commit blunders.

And they've been committing a lot of blunders.

I was looking at the statistics for the civilian police review board recommendations over the last three years.

And there are dozens of times, dozens of times that the chief has rejected the recommendations of the Civilian Police Review Board to discipline officers.

We have no accountability.

We have no open forum.

We have no open meetings.

We have no basis for knowing why that's happening and the victims, the complainants of police misconduct have no voice in that process whatsoever.

It's a one-sided presentation from the officers to the chief.

So what this does is say, let's talk about those things in the open.

So issues related to policy, for example, will be discussed in the open.

What I expect as a practical matter is that the chief will continue to develop policies with his or her assistants.

The safety director will look at those, the mayor's office, if they wanna weigh in, we'll look at those and then we will have an open forum discussion in the Community Police Commission so that the public can weigh in.

And so the commission members can weigh in.

And if it turns out that there's a concern that some proposed change by the commission violate state law, the division of police will be able to say that.

The law director will be able to say that.

Well, listen, that's a wonderful idea, but that's not gonna work.

So this parade of horribles that's being laid out that somehow this is so scary.

All we're doing is saying let's have civilian input into the policies and procedures.

What's so horrible about that.

I'll tell you, what's so horrible about that.

When people have been used to functioning without any real meaningful oversight, that's terrifying for them.

But I think for the good officers who want to be compliant with the constitution and who wanna have good civilian police relations, this will be a welcome change.

Because it's a structural change in government that then facilitates the dialogue that has been lacking in the city for far too long.

- Who should bright on a practical matter.

The police chase policy, which has been controversial and been under a lot of public and internal scrutiny over whether or not we're using it enough and leaving people off.

Was that ultimately gonna fall to the police commission created under this amendment?

- What I would expect is that it would be a collaborative endeavor.

And so what I would expect... - But who has final say on the final say on that.

- The final say on that will be the commission, okay?

The final say in saying, okay, this policy is okay, this policy is not okay, will be the commission, as a sort of policy overseeing authority.

But ultimately there will be so much collaboration and so much input from the safety forces, from the law director, from the outside community, from civil rights advocacy organizations that at the end of the day, we're gonna have better policy because we are going to have ensured that dialogue occurs as opposed to what happens now, which is by fiat, here's the policy deal with it, live with it or die by it.

And that's what we've had in the city of Cleveland.

- Johnny on the point raised by Subodh on police discipline in the chief ignoring recommendations.

I know you're not the chief, but you know the process.

When the chief says, disagrees with that commission, what is going into that?

Is it just purely on his decision?

- I guess, but there's also usually a review of policy and what the officer did or did not do in that situation.

In many instances, and the officer that was engaged in something that came up to the chief for discipline, there's a nuance to it.

Police work in the gray area.

There there's the hard red lines of what police shall not do, period, end of story.

Those are easy to follow.

There's also this large gray area, which are situationally based.

So an officer can do this in this situation and cannot do that in this situation.

So when those are played out, sometimes a civilian just looking at it from the outside, doesn't understand how those situations play out both by state law, case law and things like that.

I also want to address, he mentioned that the civilians don't have a say.

When I was in policy, I sat at the table with the NAACP and ACLU and 12 other groups when we hashed out what our new camera policy was gonna be.

It was tough, it was long, but they were at the table and we argued and we argued a lot.

It was every week that we met.

And finally, we came out with a camera policy that we all agreed, this was the best product of what we could come up with.

That is in place now.

That is done Now,.

Recommendations made by the CPC have already been implemented in the search and seizure policies in the bias policing policies in the LGBTQ transgender policies, all that input has been put in there.

So that those voices are being heard.

And that's the benefit of the CPC and why I would say that the CPC should remain.

I think it's a great idea.

- Thank you, we will come back to Barbara.

And if you could also in this answer address something additional, then we'll come to Subodh and that is on the due process.

I know safety director, Howard says he felt that this process would really throw due process out the window, but go ahead and address I think you wanted to get in on.

- I wanted to address an issue involving the current, when the chief does not agree with the recommendations that come from the police review board.

The chief makes that decision.

Maybe it's contrary to the matrix of discipline.

There are many reasons for that to be made, but the current charter does provide that if the police review board disagrees with the chief's ultimate decision, they may ask the safety director to review that again.

So there is a process it's not just that the chief rejects it and that's the end of the story.

The police review board does have a chance to present its side of the story to the safety director for a second review.

And then as far as do, I mean, I don't know what that means and there's no provisions in the charter itself for how a hearing for the police officer would be held, but we are required under the constitution of the United States to follow due process.

So I don't know that that doesn't seem to be a discussion that's worth having.

- And I know you've addressed that already.

Subodh saying that it doesn't eliminate that.

- The officers will be heard.

The officers will due process under our constitution is notice and an opportunity to be heard and the officers are gonna continue to be heard and be able to make their case if they believe they didn't violate policy or they didn't engage in misconduct.

And ultimately there will be an arbitration process that follows because they're entitled to that.

So, you know, all these efforts to try to say that somehow somebody is gonna do something by fiat, or just simply incorrect.

- Prentiss back to you on this issue of citizens input since we are talking about it and you, again, made your case early, you don't believe there's been enough input, but there are processes, you know, existing committees now where citizens can meet with the police department.

Do you not see that happening here or even elsewhere around the country?

- Yeah, I think the main thing that you two brought up that is actually true is that in a democracy we need checks and balances.

We do have a level of checks and balances.

However, the main groups that are being left out are citizens and families.

When citizens and families can only weigh in on their opinion, but they don't have a real authority, that we've seen is proven through all the different reforms that have not happened, that they do not, we do not actually get to the best solution.

And I'm glad that you said that the CPC is actually a really great body and that you've had a process with NAACP and ACLU to figure out policies that work well together.

To me, that feels complimentary.

We're just saying that let's make that a permanent body.

We don't want that to go away.

After the consent decree goes away, we wanna make it a permanent body.

And we want to make sure that those voices who are you're talking to this making policy better have an actual authority to make those policies better.

I think this only becomes controversial when people do want to do things in the dark.

When you don't wanna talk about controversial hard topics.

Imagine a CPC when you have three police officers or police police association members, you have folks have actually dealt with policeman's conduct.

You have family members, people who are in marginalized communities who have experienced policing and distrust, and then folks who actually have experienced good policing, having a public debate on the hardest subjects.

That's how we actually achieve the best policies.

And we know that because that is exactly how our city government is set up.

But right now there is something broken.

There is something broken that is not allowing the best solutions to show up.

And I think that we can all agree that we want to make sure that that happens.

And this issue 24 is that path forward.

And we know last thing I'll say, and we know that this is a better policy because we have seen the fault lines in Cleveland.

We have talked to folks in Seattle, we've talked to other places that have also had issues, how things actually fall apart when it's actually implemented.

And we have taken those lessons and brought them here.

I don't think anyone is scared of citizens being involved, but I think some folks, certain folks are scared of accountability and it being public.

- Alright, thank you.

And we got a lot more issues to get to, but at this point, we're gonna invite our audience in.

And if we run short on questions, we'll get to some more that I have.

And I know we have lots to say, but today at The City Club, you know, you're listening to a form about issue 24, a proposed charter amendment on the ballot this November and what it could mean for city hall operations and residents.

We're about to begin the Q&A with our audience.

We welcome questions from everyone, city club members, guests, students and those of you joining us via our live stream or the radio broadcast at 90.3 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to tweet a question, please do it at @thecityclub.

You can also text those questions to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

And our staff will work it into the program the best they can.

Let's have our first question now if we have someone at the podium, go ahead.

- Thank you so much for your faithful and judicious work on this.

I am Reverend Dr. Chris Davies, an ordained minister and national leader in the United Church of Christ and a resident of Ward 15, living blocks away from where Tamir Rice was shot.

It's nearly seven years ago.

I'm here with search.

Children in my neighborhood, must not leave their homes with fear of the people who are supposed to be in place to protect them.

And families in my neighborhood and yours deserve the full process of justice for what has occurred.

So my question is about what you're hearing on the ground and for Prentiss.

What is the feedback that you are hearing from folks as you are in conversations that has surprised you the most?

- What I'm hearing is honestly a sigh of relief.

I mean, we have been in unprecedented times in our country and in Cleveland and the citizens have felt like they can not see real change happen.

But when we go out and we knock doors and we talk to voters who live in the city of Cleveland about this accountability measure, there's like, wow, I can make that happen here.

I can make sure that my kid comes home safely by showing up with my vote.

And I think the citizens of Cleveland want to have an active role in public safety.

And they've waited around for politicians to make that happen and it has not happened.

It hasn't happened.

And so they said, we're not gonna wait anymore.

This is democracy at work.

And when we talk about it to citizens, they're ready to show up.

They're very excited to show up for this.

And we know that change is hard.

We know that no policy is perfect but we know that we have to start somewhere and the citizens of Cleveland are ready for this.

And they're ready to fight for it and to work through it and make it better.

- Thank you, Prentiss.

We have another question.

- Hi there, I'm Anna Maria, and I'm a resident of Cleveland.

My question to you is how are you going to ensure that the voices that are going to be involved in all of these great group discussions is people that actually want betterment for Cleveland and not just revenge for themselves.

I'd like to quote them out.

I'd like to quote Samaria Rice, September 10th of this year, too many pig cops in our community.

They are under-trained they're simple-minded, they are imposter, they are scared.

Please know your rights.

If you're a black pig cop, you are on the wrong side of life.

Your black heart is revoked for effort dummies.

You know, I don't sugar coat, nothing F all you pigs.

So this is somebody that we're wanting to have a voice?

- All right, well, I'm gonna...

I appreciate your input on that.

I can't verify that quote.

Absolutely a lot of emotion on the issue, but I think the heart of the question is getting at who is going to be appointed to that commission and how they represent who they represent.

And that's been part of the discussion that we've had from both sides.

Subodh tell us briefly, what is outlined in this amendment about who gets on it?

And that does kind of get at part of this question.

- The mayor.

- We'll have Barbara, - The mayor will appoint the majority of the members of the commission and the council will appoint a minority of the members of the commission.

There will also be police organizational representatives on the commission.

So, you know, one would hope and expect that the mayor and the council will exercise good judgment.

And one would also hope that the police organizations like The Black Shield, the CPA, the FOP, will also be responsible in their choices that they make as to who's gonna serve on the commission.

As director Langhenry mentioned earlier, there are a number of different categories created for different slots on the commission.

And some of them are mix and match.

You can have one thing or the other.

So for example, we wanna see people who have dealt with mental health issues, you know, in their professional life be a part of this, so that the kinds of issues we've seen in policing, where rather than have a mental health strategy in dealing with citizenry, we've had referring to the tissues of force.

Yeah, so what we're trying to do is create a mix of perspectives on the commission that is there to try to ensure that we have good, responsible, fair outcomes in the development of policy and also in any sort of oversight regarding discipline.

Now, as a practical matter, I don't expect that you're gonna see this commission address most issues of discipline.

I think that what we will see is once the police chief and the safety director know that there are civilians who are overseeing them, I think we will start to see them realign their decision-making to reflect the civilian population.

A quick example of that, and I wanna go into this in detail a little bit later, if I can, is the example of a young one or a teen, a 16 year old boy with down syndrome, who was attacked by officers and there were the six witnesses who swore under oath that the officers were yelling racial (indistinct crosstalk).

I did, yeah.

And the family received a $250,000 settlement for that incident.

But the officers, the witnesses said, they yelled, you're a bunch of Mexican wetbacks go back to your own country if you can't speak English, what did the police chief to six years later?

He waited six years, he gave them a slap on the wrist for quote unquote, unprofessional language.

And Mark, this is important because captain Hamm suggested somehow that it requires some expertise to be able to implement policy on this.

I would respectfully suggest that most people in Cleveland recognize that if you're a racist cop and you've engaged in racist conduct like that and the evidence is there that you've done so, you should be fired.

We don't need special expertise by the police to know that gee, you shouldn't be fired for that.

And so what this initiative does is define racist conduct and say that officers who engage in racist conduct, that the presumption is that they should be fired.

So I think that what we're looking for is a rebalancing of civilian values versus a police culture.

We want the police to be effective, but we wanna make sure that they're being accountable and responsive to the values of the civilian community.

We'll go to Barbara and then we'll go to Johnny on that.

- Sure, I just wanna point out in the Ortiz case, there was a question of fact over what was said at the scene.

And just to point that out, that was never determined as a fact.

But going further, and there were other witnesses Subodh.

Going further on the composition of the CPC, you're absolutely right.

There are constrictions come.

As I mentioned earlier, two people have to be, I'm sorry.

Two members must represent community organizations focused on civil rights.

And then at least one person, a mix of issues presented to those who are limited English speakers, homeless with mental health or substance abuse disorders.

Those who have been directly impacted by police violence or be a family member of a person killed by the police.

Those who've been incarcerated and exonerated where police were involved in the wrongful conviction or incarceration, gun violence survivors or a family member of a person killed by gun violence, an attorney with experience representing victims of police misconduct or criminally prosecuting police misconduct.

And there are three police union representatives.

I wanna note that the non police union representatives may only be removed after charges of misfeasance, nonfeasance, et cetera and a hearing the police members may be removed by a majority vote of the commission itself.

- Johnny quickly address.

- Just the mention of racism being defined and it is not.

Racism is not defined and issue 24 as the standard that an officer will be held to.

- But if you could also just to follow up and finish up on this whole point.

Subodh brings up that we don't necessarily need to be a police officer or have that background beyond this commission.

In your experience with your background, why do you think it's important to have that representation or for you to be the type of person that makes that decision?

- Every year we have to go through training that updates us on current case law and policy best practices across the country.

The civilian members of this commission are not required to do all of that training.

We gotta go through set training just to become a police officer to begin with in relation to what we can and cannot do.

And then our policies actually can restrict us further than what which ours actually do restrict as much further than what the actual law would let us do.

And that that's a choice by the city of Cleveland.

- Thank you, let's go to another question.

- Hi, I'm a resident of Cleveland's Ward 3.

In the past week in the news, we've heard some people talk about the cost, if voters decide to pass issue 24, what is the cost to not passing this initiative?

Whether it's financial or human to our safety, what is the cost of not passing this?

- We'll start with Prentiss on that.

- Yeah, so we already know that there's been $47 million in settlements because of police misconduct and in this city.

And so there's already an enormous cost to the taxpayers because we don't have real accountability here.

And when we're talking about the costs, it's not just monetary, it's a cost and trust with police in the community.

This particular initiative, 24, it's about rebuilding that trust.

But in any relationship, any successful relationship, you have to have accountability in it.

You have to know that when wrongdoing happens, that we can take action, but wrongdoing only happens some of the times, the rest of the time, it's about partnership and making sure that public safety is the number one priority in this city.

And so that is the thing we're trying to address.

To stop that $47 million of settlement stop continuing that, but also create space for real trust to be rebuilt in this community and the citizens are ready for that.

- Johnny, on this point of costs, we've heard a lot, both from the candidates in the debate and others that we're going to see police officers flee the department as a result of this amendment.

And yes, Barbara we'll come back to that.

Right now, we're down almost to 150 officers.

Is there a cost of losing men and women if this passes?

- Yes.

And it's proven by the Republican National Convention, as crazy as that sounds to some people.

When the Republican National Convention came into Cleveland, there was a lot of extra training.

We had to go through... A lot of information was provided about all the horrors that are gonna happen with all the protests.

And you know, what a lot of officers that had their 25 years then decided they're just gonna pull the plug or at the first sign of a problem pull the plug during the RNC.

And it's because they've already done their 25 years.

They've already gave their sweat, blood and tears for the city.

They just didn't want to be caught up in what was potentially going to be a crazy situation.

So they just pulled the plug and left.

And I guess that's gonna be what the fear is now.

Is right now we have two hundred forty, two hundred and fifty of which I'm one of them that has already served 25 years and could leave at any time.

In addition to that number, there's also some that have served in the military or served in other police agencies or with the city of Cleveland that we don't know about that.

So that number might even be significantly higher.

They could at any time, just pull the plug and leave.

- But is it because they don't like the idea of the Civilian Review Board being over them?

Why is it, what is it that drives them out?

- Because there's no defined process.

It there's a lot of like what he said a lot is I expect.

The primary author of issue 24 says I expect it to do this.

I expect it to do that.

Officers are...

Listen, we're not trusting people to begin with because we deal with people lying to us all the time.

So when somebody says, I expect this to happen, or trust me this is what's gonna be, or that would never happen, we're skeptical.

- Briefly Subodh and then we'll go to Barbara and we'll get another question.

- This idea that officers will flee if we have police reform to me, it reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles, where the sheriff holds a gun to his own neck and says stop or I'll shoot, extricate himself from a situation where the townsfolk are coming after him.

It is nonsense.

I mean, if there are officers who are at a position where they can retire and collect their pensions and they wanna do so, they'll do so, okay?

The fact that there is civilian oversight now of the disciplinary process that an individual officer would think, gosh, this means that if I commit misconduct and I go up the chain, I'll have to go up over the chief and therefore I should quit now, it's just preposterous.

And I will tell you this, it is so important and it should be so important to the citizenry that the opposition is raising this kind of nonsense, because what they're doing is they're threatening you.

They're saying to you, we're all gonna disappear and you're gonna live in chaos and you won't have safety forces if you dare, if you dare have greater police accountability in Cleveland.

What I would say is if there is any individual officer that would literally resign or retire because we have greater accountability in Cleveland, you're exactly the kind of officer we don't want need, we don't even want to serve good riddance.

And let's bring in the next generation of police officers who are committed to constitutional policing and strong police community relations.

- Barbara, on the issue of costs, how do you see it?

- Yes, well, there's a lot to unpack here but as far as $47 million in settlement, I've heard people throw that out as evidence of why the consent decree isn't successful.

And I do wanna clarify that there have been very few cases settled that have arisen out of events that have occurred after 2015.

And that's an important thing to note.

We do have fewer lawsuits.

- The trap line is down.

- Exactly and the amounts.

- There were some cases paying out now that were triggered prior to the 2015.

- Most of the cases, I can only think of a hand fill.

- So those numbers on the face it could be a little bit.

- Exactly, it's a misleading number.

And then on the...

I guess I have a little bit of a different view.

I don't know that it's an extreme Subodh that only officers who are afraid of being held accountable for their own bad behavior are gonna flee.

I do think there's a dimension of human nature, where if you feel like, you know, you're gonna be embarrassed publicly, you're gonna be shamed.

Even if you're just coming in and doing your job and someone else perceives it as wrong, I think that stress, a lot of people say, I don't wanna work under that kind of stress.

That doesn't mean that those folks wouldn't be good officers.

That doesn't mean that those folks are gonna be out there committing civil rights violations.

And I think we need to acknowledge that that is a dimension of human nature.

- Thank you for weighing on there.

- There one thing on process though.

- Very quickly, if you don't mind, thank you.

- I've not said much about process, cause you all have brought it up multiple times.

I'm actually glad we're talking about it.

Like what are these procedures and power process is gonna be?

That actually is decided by folks like the law director in city council and the mayor, like all those questions about how this is actually implemented, it's gonna take the people we elect next.

That is their job to do that.

And so it's not the job of the constitution to lay out every procedure and process for that to happen.

And I know that this brilliant people like Barbara here and the next mayor and the next city council who are gonna figure out those processes with citizens.

- Johnny.

- The issue where he brought up about discipline and officers fearing discipline.

It's not discipline, it's figure of a civilian control over the police.

And that includes policy and a lot of other areas other than discipline.

So it's more than that.

But also they keep bringing up the accountability.

There's no accountability, no accountability.

And I mentioned earlier, Cleveland police officers, the most accountable entity in the city of Cleveland, every one of them wears a body camera.

If they do not turn that body camera on during an assignment or do not turn it on fast enough or don't do not keep it on long enough, they get disciplined one day.

That's $400 for a police officer for not hitting a button on his chest fast enough or turning it off too soon.

And on top of that, there are GPSes is on every car.

We have phones in the cars now that have GPSes.

Everything that an officer does is scrutinized over and over and over again.

And recently our discipline has gone almost through the roof.

Anyone can look it up, do a public records request for the divisional notices related to discipline and the division of police and you will see everything that spells out it's public record.

So it is being done, there is accountability.

So the thought that there is no accountability or that there's less, there's a lot more than there's ever been.

- Thank you.

Next question.

- Excuse me.

My name is Gordon Friedman.

I am on the police commission.

I am the chairman of the Search and Seizure Work Group, which includes members of Cleveland state Law School, experts in criminal procedure, Case Western Reserve, our work group also includes members of Black Shield and the FOP.

It also includes citizens from the NAACP and the ACLU.

We have made recommendations to the city regarding search and seizure, stop and frisk, mirandizing and the role of juveniles who are confronted by the police.

The majority of our recommendations to the city and we have had a dialogue in the past with the city but the majority of our recommendations have been rejected.

So, it's not to say the city didn't listen to us, they did.

I give them that.

But the majority of our recommendations by people who are expert in the area had been rejected by the city, including the inspector general, the former inspector general, who's now the sheriff of the county wrote an outstanding recommendations as it relates to vehicle pursuits.

And I don't know where that sits at the moment, but my guess is it's collecting dust.

- And don't forget that the commission ends once the consent decree expires and the city council did nothing to try to institutionalize the commission.

And so that's why we need this charter amendment to ensure the commission continues.

- Yeah, I'm gonna let Barbara have some response.

I know there wasn't a question there.

There was a statement on his involvement and he had direct involvement but Barbara, go ahead and address the idea that the city is ignoring all of these recommendations.

- I didn't say (indistinct).

- Not following up.

- Okay, and I don't know the nature of the exact ones that the city did not accept, but I do wanna clarify too, when folks say, there's no citizen input and there's these broad statements Gordon just showed there is citizen input.

And as far as accountability of the final decision makers, the citizens actually have a say in that and it's at the election box.

That they vote the mayor and the members of city council into office.

And as far as the commission itself expiring and council not doing anything.

Right now under the consent decree, it is the monitor's role that expired after five years, if not continued year after year, the consent decree itself does not expire until the city is two years in full and final compliance with the things that are put in place.

One year for search and seizures, two years for everything else.

So we are not near the end of the consent decree.

We do not know what the council may or may not do as it gets near the end of the consent decree.

- Thank you.

And for those that do want to find a little bit more about this, I would encourage them to go to the city of Cleveland's YouTube channel, where they can watch the safety committee hearing that was recently held at which safety director Howard and others responded to some of these issues.

And there's a lot, there's a 20 minute review of this by Barbara, Subodh speaks to a number of the issues we didn't get to.

So make that a YouTube channel trend right now.

Alright, so today at The City Club, you've been listening to examining issue 24 part of our criminal justice series.

And that brings us to the end of the forum.

Thank you panelists.

Thank you members.

And good afternoon.

- For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of The City Club, go to cityclub.org.

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