Cincinnati's police are reluctant to comply with a key Justice Department recommendation that officers document each time they pull and point their weapons at someone.

        Current policy says officers can draw their guns if they believe that they or others might be seriously harmed or killed. Police don't have to report the incident unless they shoot.

        Justice investigators say that civilians have complained that police improperly pointed weapons at them or their families. Police officials respond that if an officer knows he or she must file a report each time he draws a gun, he might hesitate.

        That could cost someone, perhaps the officer, a life. I understand that.
       

A nightmare

        But police and Justice officials should note the origin of Rev. Raymond Jones' nightmares.

        You may remember the reverend: The 50-something African-American preacher from Westwood, who broke ranks with boycott leaders and is helping circulate a petition against it.

        On a recent afternoon, the Rev. Mr. Jones says he parked his white truck on Race Street near the Alabama Fish Bar and chatted with an acquaintance.

        At least five patrol cars surrounded his truck, he says, and at least seven officers got out and pointed guns and rifles at him. An officer shouted over the public address system for him to turn off his engine and throw out the keys.

        With the truck window rolled up, the Rev. Mr. Jones feared leaning forward to roll it down. He thought the movement might be mistaken for an aggressive action, and he could be shot.

        “I took a chance, and slowly opened my door a crack. Then I tossed out my keys onto the ground,” he says.

        The officer ordered him out of the truck.

        “That's when they gang-rushed me,” he says. He says police put him against his truck and started to search him. He says officers didn't use handcuffs and didn't rough him up.

        Then, he says, an officer explained that police were really seeking a white male, in a cowboy hat, driving a truck like his.

        “I asked them, "Do I look like a white man to you?' They all smiled and turned around and left me standing in the street.”

        Turns out, police did arrest a white male fitting that description a few streets away. He was charged with weapons violations.

        Police had received a tip, just minutes before the incident with the Rev. Mr. Jones, that a shootout was about to happen between a white man and several black males. The tipster said a white truck was involved and the men had 9mm handguns.

        Police records show the officers were urged to approach with caution. They didn't know who might be driving the truck until after the Rev. Mr. Jones was stopped, Lt. Kurt Byrd says.

        Since then, the reverend's nightmares keep him awake with visions of officers pointing guns. When a police cruiser passes, he shakes, he says.

        When he called police to complain last Tuesday, he told a sergeant that police should report whenever their weapons are drawn. He said he didn't want the officers punished. He did want police to use his case as a training tool to help officers realize how frightening the view is from the wrong end of a gun.
       

Other cities don't

        It's true that the Justice Department asks of Cincinnati what no other city has done.

        But requiring officers to report every use of a gun is our chance to set a national standard for safety and police openness.

        It could be our chance to better monitor officers' show of force, and it could be our best chance to prove or disprove claims of unfair police harassment of minorities.

       Denise Smith Amos can be reached at 768-8395 or e-mail damos@enquirer.com.

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