The system Cincinnati police rely on to detect bad behavior by officers is inefficient, outdated and riddled with errors.

        The problems persist even though city officials told a federal mediator three years ago they would build a better system to track almost everything about officer performance.

        But the new “early warning system” was never built, and personnel information from sick days to shots fired remains scattered in files throughout the police division.

        Now, with the division facing an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, police officials are scrambling to catch up.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

After April's protests and riots, the U.S. Department of Justice announced May 7 a comprehensive investigation of the Cincinnati Police Division.   In the months ahead, The Cincinnati Enquirer will examine the city's police force in a series called “Is Justice Served?”   This first installment focuses on the city's system of monitoring its police officers' performance.

        They have reason to worry. Justice Department lawyers have made early warning systems a focal point of their investigations in other cities, from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh.

        The systems are supposed to be comprehensive, reliable databases that help catch minor problems before they get out of hand. Cincinnati's system, like those in many other cities, is neither comprehensive nor reliable.

        Police admit there are problems and plan to build a new system.

        “We recognize the need for a more integrated system,” says Lt. Col. Rick Biehl, an assistant chief. “We don't want to wait for what the Department of Justice says. We want to get this done.”

        If the Justice Department is not satisfied with the improvements — or with other aspects of police operations — the city will be forced to make major changes in the police division.

        The investigators came to Cincinnati following the fatal police shooting of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed African-American man, which prompted protests and rioting in April.

        In similar investigations elsewhere, the Justice Department has consistently singled out early warning systems as an essential part of a good police department. The best systems, the agency says, should electronically track every officer's arrest rate, sick days, citizen complaints, use of force and up to a dozen other statistics. The systems also should automatically alert supervisors to officers who have unusually high numbers.

BAD DATA

Inaccuracies in the Cincinnati Police Division's database on use of force make it harder for supervisors to monitor officers' performance. Among mistakes the Enquirer found:   • Seven records list Sgt. Phillip Buccino as white; seven list him as black. The personnel roster lists him as an African-American.   • Officer Shawn George's records appear with seven different spellings of his first name. In an eighth case, his name is transposed as George Shawn.   • Officer LaDon Laney is also listed as Ledon Leney and Laney Ladon.   • Officers Bachman, Battison, Bley, Brunswick, McKinney, Scholl, Shari and Smallwood have their first names Jeffrey misspelled “Jeffery”.   • Male officers Jon Harris and Matthew Martin are listed as women.   • Sgt. Douglas B. Ibold goes by his middle name Brian. Database entries use Douglas, Doug and Brian.   • Officer Samuel Igel's first name appears as Samuel, Sanuel, Sam, Sammuel and Samual.   • Spc. Robert Blankenship has one entry with his nickname, Buddy.

        An Enquirer review of more than 1,000 records in Cincinnati's system found it doesn't work that way here:

        • Police do not compile most records in a single database that can be easily searched. The database does track use of force statistics, but it does not automatically alert supervisors to potential problems. The result: It's harder for supervisors to spot bad behavior.

        • The names of nearly 150 officers in the database are misspelled at least once, and dozens of badge numbers are inconsistent. The mistakes create multiple entries for officers, forcing supervisors to cross-check those entries to make sure they get all the records.

        • Officers often are listed under several variations of their names, including nicknames. One officer's use-of-force statistics are spread out under six different variations of his name.

        • In one case, there is a record for an officer who doesn't exist. The name Michael Grave, an apparent misspelling of a female officer's name, is listed as being involved in the case of an injured prisoner.

        Police Chief Tom Streicher did not return phone calls seeking comment. However, City Manager John Shirey says he is surprised the system contains so many errors.

        “If there are lots of inaccuracies in the data, then that's obviously not good,” he says. “I would certainly see that as a problem.”

        The police division was supposed to deal with that kind of problem in 1998 when city officials told a federal mediator they would build a more comprehensive warning system.

        The mediator was in Cincinnati then to meet with city officials and citizens groups about improving police-community relations. The mediator, Jesse Taylor, says the early warning system was an important part of the discussion.

        “The city agreed to address this,” says Mr. Taylor, regional director of the Justice Department's community relations service. Other Justice Department officials declined comment.

        Mr. Shirey says he thought the city did address those concerns when police set up the use of force database and began checking various files, such as citizen complaints, for signs of trouble.

        He says the city's system may not store all the information in one place, but it may still get the job done.

        “It sounds to me like you're trying to criticize us because we don't drive a Lexus, when we drive a Ford,” he says. “We may drive a Ford, but we can still get to the same destination.”

        But the police acknowledge they can do better.

        They also know the stakes are higher today than in 1998. Unlike the federal mediator, the Justice Department lawyers can file a civil rights lawsuit against the police if they don't like what they find here.

King case prompted change

        The mission of an early warning system is two-fold: collect job performance stats in an easy-to-access database, and alert supervisors when an officer's numbers exceed the norm.

        The concept has been around since the 1970s. However, the idea did not catch on until after the 1992 videotaped police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles focused national attention on police accountability.

        Since then, police departments from Pittsburgh to Chicago to New Orleans have built computerized systems to better monitor their officers.

        “It is extremely labor-intensive,” says Sgt. Richard Drouant of the New Orleans Police Department. “But with the Rodney King case, people became acutely aware of what they didn't want officers engaging in.”

        The logic behind the systems is that tracking a wide range of information — not just how many times an officer fires his gun — will help identify problems before they escalate. Sick days, traffic accidents and citizen complaints can speak volumes about an officer's attitude, experts say.

        The systems are not expected to anticipate every high-profile incident, such as the April 7 shooting of Mr. Thomas, which led to Mayor Charlie Luken's request for a Justice Department investigation. The officer involved, Stephen Roach, had a good record and would not necessarily have been picked out by a warning system.

        “An early warning system is a structured, bureaucratic system that forces you do do this monitoring,” says Samuel Walker, a University of Nebraska criminal justice professor who has written books on the subject.

        “It keeps all these little things from falling through the cracks,” he says. “If you deal with the little problems, you can keep them from becoming bigger problems.”

        Although early warning systems vary from department to department, standards set by the Justice Department and others are a blueprint for cities looking to build their own.

        A federal report in January suggested that systems include information on more than a dozen topics, including uses of force, citizen complaints, commendations, disciplinary action, misconduct allegations, training history, sick leave and traffic stops.

        If an officer has a high number in any category, supervisors should get an immediate electronic notice, or “flag.”

        Cincinnati tracks only a handful of those stats in its use of force database. The database includes almost 5,000 records about uses of physical force, tasers, batons, chemical irritant and firearms.

        The division's files on sick leave are kept at a different location, complaints in another and traffic stops in yet another. And because Cincinnati has no automatic flagging system, supervisors must manually search the data every month to produce reports on officer performance.

        What's more, errors in the system make the main database inefficient and unreliable. “The quality of (the data) is important,” Mr. Walker says. “If you get garbage in, you get garbage out.”

Spotting problem officers

        The value of early warning systems has been debated for years, in cities across the country.

        Police critics and citizens groups see the systems as the first line of defense against officer misconduct. Officers and their unions often complain that a computer database is no way to judge how officers do their jobs.

        The data produced by the systems must be put into context, says Fraternal Order of Police President Keith Fangman:

        “An officer working in Over-the-Rhine or Avondale, which are very violent, high-crime neighborhoods, is obviously going to have more macings and uses of force than an officer who patrols Hyde Park or Mount Lookout, where there is very little crime.”

        Any new system should take that into account, Mr. Fangman says.

        Supporters of early-warning systems say the databases can be customized, ensuring that every department can set its own guidelines for job performance.

        “This is all about assuring us that the police department has a system of weeding out the bad apples,” says Al Gerhardstein, a Cincinnati civil-rights lawyer who has urged police to adopt such a system for years. “That's all it is. Everybody says that's what they want. So then, what's the problem?”

        He says a lawsuit alleging racial profiling by Cincinnati police was prompted in part by the lack of a comprehensive early warning system. Mr. Gerhardstein, who filed the federal suit in March, also was involved in the 1998 mediation that suggested a new warning system.

        “We weren't trying to micromanage the police department,” he says. “We just wanted to get it started, get it going.”

Pittsburgh is model

        Many cities still have inefficient warning systems, or none at all. But the pressure to improve has grown since 1994, when the Justice Department was given the power to investigate and sue police agencies.

        Several cities reformed their police departments after signing settlements, or consent decrees, with the Justice Department. All of those decrees required a comprehensive early warning system.

        Pittsburgh was the first city the Justice Department forced to make changes, and the early warning system there is now a model for other cities.

        The Pittsburgh system tracks 19 job performance categories and automatically alerts supervisors to high numbers. If problems arise, officers are counseled by supervisors or routed into remedial training programs.

        Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert McNeilly says the system is so thorough he uses it for more than monitoring bad behavior. In fact, he says, only a few problem officers have been identified by the system.

        He says it's more likely to point out officers who do their jobs well.

        A high total in the traffic stop category may mean the officer is an aggressive traffic cop, not someone who harasses minorities. And a high number of search and seizures might mean the officer is a top-notch drug enforcement officer.

        “We selected last year's "Officer of the Year' based on this,” Chief McNeilly says. “I don't know if we would have known who this officer was if not for this system.”

        In another case, the system repeatedly flagged an officer for relatively minor infractions, such as traffic accidents and complaints. As it turned out, the officer had become suicidal because of personal problems. He's since gotten counseling, returned to work and become a top officer.

        Chief McNeilly says training on how to use the system is crucial so supervisors can interpret the numbers. They need to know when a high number might signal a problem, and when it might just mean the officer is doing his job.

        “You must train the officer to collect the data and the supervisor to use it,” Mr. Walker says. “These are high maintenance operations. You have to stay on top of them 365 days a year.”

        The immediate problem in Cincinnati is building a system that will satisfy the Justice Department.

        Police officials say they decided against spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy software from an existing system, such as Pittsburgh's. Instead, they will create their own.

        They say the new system will integrate the information from many files into one computer database. It also will make flagging automatic and set out a more specific path for possible action against the officer.

        If the system is built within the next few months, the Justice Department lawyers will no doubt give it a close look.

        Police officials are confident the new system will be better than the old, but they may not know for months whether it passes muster with the Justice Department.
        John J. Byczkowski contributed to this report.

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