It Takes More Than the Feds to Fix a Broken Police Department
After years of tension between black residents and law enforcement, Cincinnati succeeded because it brought the community into the process
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Since early December, when the policeman who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold was cleared, protests around the country, including in Berkeley and Seattle, turned violent. Cincinnati’s demonstrations didn’t. There were no arrests, no fires—just calm. It was a victory for the city, whose police force spent five years under Justice Department supervision to reduce its use of excessive force. Instead of military equipment, the Cincinnati Police Department brought in cops from community outreach teams to patrol the marches. The department’s chief, Jeffrey Blackwell, says his hope was that “folks don’t allow a sympathetic reflex for what happened in another city to mess up the work and progress that we’ve made here.”