Overview

Few community events are more divisive than an instance of perceived police misconduct and a lack of adequate governmental response, particularly when race or ethnicity is an issue. Egregious examples such as the police chase and beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King or the shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City are rare, but polarizing. Swift governmental response is a necessity to shore up police-community tensions, begin to restore trust, and to understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. Human rights commissions have the potential to play a central role in this response.

The Executive Session is tracing the activities of human rights commissions in several communities dealing with the aftermath of excessive use of force or misuse of power by police.

Columbus, Ohio Excessive Use of Police Force Case Study:
> Download PDF

One of the Executive Session's first projects traces the aftermath of the 2005 fatal shooting by police of a mentally ill Somali man living in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is home to a large population of Somalis, more than 40,000, who fled their war-torn homeland and came to the United States as legal residents with refugee status.

In December 2005, Franklin County deputy sheriffs arrived at the residence of 23-year old Nasir Abdi, pursuant to a court order, to escort him to a psychiatric hospital where he was to receive medications. The deputies, fearing Abdi was drawing a knife, shot and killed him. Following the shooting, hundreds of members of the Somali community protested at City Hall, outraged that non-lethal means were not used to handle the situation.

The Columbus Community Relations Commission responded by implementing a protocol it devised to intervene when police conduct leads to community unrest and protest. The approach employs swift formation of a Community Intervention Team (CIT), made up of community members selected by representatives of the aggrieved group or community. The CIT then meets with representatives of the police agencies involved. The end goal is to restore trust between the community and police that was breached by the particular event.

In this case, leaders of the local Somali community appointed to the CIT met with representatives of the Sheriff's Department, FBI, Ohio Highway Patrol, Ohio Homeland Security Office and police chiefs from area townships that have large Somali populations. The Commission facilitated the meetings. Early on, discussions shifted away from specifics of the death of Mr. Abdi because his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department. The conversations became more general, examining persistent misunderstandings between law enforcement and the Somali community. The CIT format provided a forum to promote understanding about law enforcement tactics among Somalis and about Somali culture among police personnel

The CIT process culminated in a formal, signed agreement between representatives of the Somali and law enforcement communities, to be monitored by the Commission. The case study examines how the Commission facilitated community healing, how it will encourage further reform, and how it will measure the effectiveness of the responses to the incident overall.


New Orleans Excessive Use of Force Case Study:

A second case study focuses on the response led by the New Orleans Human Relations Commission to complaints about police treatment of young black men that surfaced following the December 2004 death of Levon Jones. Mr. Jones was an African American college student killed on New Years Eve by Bourbon Street bouncers using physical restraints. The Human Relations Commission held public hearings and conducted a "secret shopper" investigation that documented pervasive discrimination against African American males by businesses along Bourbon Street. Community complaints about the bouncers were accompanied by equally strong complaints about police treatment of young black men in the area. To confront these problems, the Commission sponsored training for more than 850 bartenders and bouncers, in partnership with local police and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Just as progress was being made on community-merchant-police relations, New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, interrupting efforts to press forward. Interested in creating a police review mechanism but now faced with strict budgetary limitations, the City of New Orleans in 2006 announced creation of a volunteer community police oversight group. The case study examines the pros and cons of the model and explores whether the community perceptions about the treatment of young black men by police improved, both before Katrina hit and since.


Greensboro, North Carolina Police Complaints Review: