The Cincinnati police are not guilty of racial profiling

Peter Bronson:

For more than five years, the ACLU, a few City Council members and black protesters have yelled "racial profiling" in a crowded political theater. Now the verdict is in: The Cincinnati police are not guilty.

"There was no difference in the type of force used against individuals of different races," said the Rand Corp. study of Cincinnati policing, paid for by the city as part of a collaborative agreement to end profiling - that apparently doesn't exist.

The report is the most ambitious of its kind in any city, according to Rand. It found "no statistically significant evidence of racial profiling" and "no difference in citation rates between whites and blacks."

The study of arrests, contact cards and cruiser-cam tapes found possibly four questionable cops out of more than 1,000 - an employee performance record to be envied by General Motors, Procter & Gamble or the New York Times.

In the 400-page report, I didn't find a single mention of the storm-trooper cops described so often by protesters and the ACLU. What I found was a very different profile:

Most likely a white male, he cares about his city and does his best to be a professional. His favorite part of his job is to help people and solve problems, even though his work is so dangerous he is 68 percent likely to be seriously injured.

He thinks city leaders run from problems they should solve. And he is 90 percent likely to say the media exaggerate racial profiling and unfairly blame him when he does nothing wrong.

He wears a badge. And he is frustrated that the black community won't support him when he risks his life to protect them, when they are most often victims of crime in the most dangerous neighborhoods.

"There is absolutely no substitute for a community that will not tolerate crime," said Mayor Mark Mallory during a meeting at The Enquirer to discuss the city's record 75 homicides in 2005. "I've been pushing back real hard on the community saying you have to get involved."

Hamilton County Coroner Dr. O'dell Owens said: "We have to face it that 98 percent of black (homicide victims) are being killed by blacks," he said. "We can't hide from it."

The Rand report echoed that: "Community members, particularly black community members, also have a role to play in the improvement of police-community relations."

That means witnesses need to turn in the thugs who sell drugs and murder each other. It means more education of kids the way Owens does, when he visits high schools to tell students that the choice between education or drugs is the choice between a graduation gown or a body bag.

It means the race retailers who spread paranoia and hate on WDBZ and at council meetings need to be squelched.

And it means the media need to start calling bad guys bad guys, said Police Chief Tom Streicher. "Somehow we have lost our focus on pointing the finger at the people who are doing these things," he said.

It's about time. The meeting and the Rand report could not be a better Christmas present for a city that has been beaten down by murdering drug gangs.

The Rand report said the police have already made big changes for better community relations, but it is not communicated. So we have a gap in perception: 58 percent of white people trust the police, but only 17 percent of black people do. It said "black drivers were less courteous, less pleasant, more belligerent and less respectful" to police.

No wonder. For years, the ACLU and black protesters have been slandering Cincinnati's police, exaggerating mistreatment, spreading fear, suspicion and hostility.

Don't hold your breath for the ACLU protesters to apologize.

But Mallory, Owens and the cops have it right: It's time for a new profile of a community that steps up to stop drug crime and killings.

Study: No bias in traffic stops

Is Racial Profiling a Fact in Cincinnati?

Lynching Cincinnati's Police

Cincinnati Reconsidered I: The Case Of The “Conservative” Columnist; etc.

Appeasing the Race Hustlers

What Really Happened in Cincinnati