Citizen complaints against Cincinnati police officers will no longer stop at the desk of the officer's immediate supervisor.

        A week after federal investigators criticized the way complaints are handled, police officials have expanded their review process.

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        Instead of dismissing complaints at the police station without outside review, they will now be sent up the chain of command to one of four assistant police chiefs.

        “It is a quality-control issue,” Assistant Chief Rick Biehl said. “We wanted to make sure that captains, in making decisions about (citizen complaints), are making good ones.”

Critics unimpressed

        But members of the Citizens Police Review Panel — charged with reviewing all citizen complaints against officers — said Friday that the change does little to fix a badly damaged system.

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• Complaints process

        “It's really not addressing the problem,” said Paul DeMarco, a lawyer. “To me, this doesn't speak of what is to come — which is restructuring.”

        U.S. Department of Justice investigators — who began a probe of the police division following the April riots — say the current process discourages citizens from complaining. When they do complain, their concerns are often dismissed without a full investigation.
       

Unrelated to report

        Federal findings mirror an Enquirer investigation in July, which revealed that 90 percent of citizen complaints against officers since 1997 were dismissed with little or no review.

        The result was that citizens who filed complaints were often left in the dark about the outcome of their cases, and even years later harbored resentment over the way they were treated.

        Assistant Chief Biehl said the change in procedure has nothing to do with the 23-page Department of Justice report, which also found problems with the division's use-of-force policies, training methods and record keeping.

        “This is something we recommended ourselves,” Assistant Chief Biehl said. “It's independent of the Department of Justice.”

        The new procedure was circulated in the division's weekly staff notes, which all police employees are supposed to read and sign. Effective immediately, it orders all investigating supervisors to submit complaints via the chain of command to an assistant chief.

        Mr. DeMarco said this will do nothing to help restore public confidence, because the way complaints are handled remains the same.

        Under the division's complaint process, citizens are brought together with the officer and a supervisor at a district police station.

        Cincinnati police say the supervisor's involvement and the meetings help resolve complaints that usually are nothing more thanmisunderstandings. In almost every case, supervisors decide the outcome of the complaint before the meeting takes place.
       

Federal criticisms

        While this process is supposed to be limited to minor complaints, federal investigators say police have dealt with serious misconduct cases, such as excessive force and illegal searches, through this process.

        “While the CPD seems to regard complaints of the improper use of restraining force as a minor matter, improper restraining force, because it is an unreasonable use of force, is a constitutional violation,” Justice Department investigator Stephen Rosenbaum, chief of the special litigation section, wrote in his report.

        The most severe form of discipline that can result from the process is an oral reprimand or an entry in the personnel log, even in cases of serious misconduct, Mr. Rosenbaum said.

        The federal report also criticized the department for labeling complaints resolved if the person who filed it refused to attend a police station meeting.

        “We recommend that the CPD consider changing where these meetings are held, having a higher-level supervisor or a non-CPD mediator conduct the meetings,” Mr. Rosenbaum said.

        Mr. DeMarco agrees, saying police call the process mediation when it is nothing more than a meeting.

        “That is a major facet of this ill-conceived program,” he said.

        Assistant Chief Biehl acknowledged that the new procedure does not address all of the federal concerns and, “the process will still be the same.”

        But he said many of the federal findings address issues the division already was working to improve.

        “This is really an evolution of the process,” he said. “These are issues we look at on an ongoing basis.”

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