by Nick Castele
This weekend, Cleveland鈥檚 association for black police officers held a recruitment fair to encourage African Americans to apply for law enforcement jobs. As Cleveland carries out its police reform agreement with the Justice Department, many residents say they want the police force to look more like the community.
鈥淚f you get a black officer that grew up in a project neighborhood, they understand,鈥� Cleveland high school student Robert Roberson says. 鈥淭hey won鈥檛 just take everything in a bad way. If they see some kids play-fighting, they鈥檒l just tell them to stop. Because they knew what they used to do.鈥�
But diversifying the police has been a long-running struggle for the city.
Retired Cleveland police officer Rich Decembly, who worked in recruitment, says he was led to the force in an unlikely way years ago, when he was working at a department store.
鈥淚 witness this police officer, who was an off duty police officer working in Federal Department Store, he was smacking around this little black kid for no reason,鈥� Decembly says. 鈥淎nd then smacked his head up against the wall. Cracked his head, and the kid just walked away.鈥�
Decembly says he was then roughed up, too.
After that, he says, he wanted to become a police officer to act as 鈥渃heck and balance鈥� on police who abused their authority. But for many residents, he says, a history of police using force on black citizens has long made it more difficult to recruit.
鈥淭he police department is not in a good place with the black community right now, it鈥檚 just not,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd it hasn鈥檛 been for some time. This is nothing new. Police brutality has always been in existence.鈥�
Detective Lynn Hampton leads Black Shield, a group for black police officers in Cleveland. He organized the weekend鈥檚 recruitment fair, which drew about 30 people interested in applying for police jobs.
鈥淵ou have to ask yourself a question,鈥� Hampton says. 鈥淏eing as it may that you have unemployment to where it is in the inner city, so who wouldn鈥檛 want a 50,000-plus job? So why aren鈥檛 they applying?鈥�
Research isn鈥檛 clear on whether a more diverse police department is less likely to use excessive force. But Stanford law professor David Sklansky says police departments do themselves a disservice by remaining homogeneous.
鈥淲hen a department becomes more diverse, it gets less insular and the discussion inside the department tends to be more vibrant,鈥� Sklansky says. 鈥淭hat means that it鈥檚 easier for the department to engage in real partnership with the community and with groups outside the department.鈥�
Cleveland made its biggest strides in hiring black and Hispanic officers when the city was under a federal consent decree to integrate. In 1972, NAACP attorney James Hardiman and others sued the city.
鈥淲e were ambitious, we were young, maybe we didn鈥檛 know the tiger鈥檚 tail that we were biting off,鈥� Hardiman says, 鈥渂ut we decided to take them on.鈥�
After years of litigation, a judge found there was discrimination in recruitment, the entrance examination and post-exam screenings. The parties reached an agreement to hire more black and Hispanic officers.
Officer Decembly says success depends on working year-round building and maintaning lists of contacts.
鈥淵ou got to go get them when they鈥檙e in school,鈥� Decembly says. 鈥淵ou got to go there, you got to go to those churches. You got to go there all year long. Fill up your databases with all the numbers. That way you can pick the best of the best. You get the cream of the crop.鈥�
After the lawsuit, the number of minorities on the force grew, and when they made up 33.7 percent of police in 1995, the consent decree expired.
Twenty years later, that percentage is barely any higher at 34.1 percent, even though black and Hispanic residents now make up more than half the city. And only 14 percent of Cleveland鈥檚 police are women.
鈥淭hat has to be improved, and the decree has said that we have to improve it,鈥� says Commander Ellis Johnson, who leads community policing in Cleveland and oversees recruitment.
Today, officers focus on recruiting when there鈥檚 a civil service test coming up, rather than year round鈥� . Cleveland鈥檚 new consent decree says the city must develop a new recruitment plan by December.
The city once operated a minority recruitment unit, required by the court. Now, it鈥檚 just the recruitment unit.
Johnson says good community policing, showing empathy for residents and building ties with them, can help overcome reluctance among potential candidates.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 look like me, you don鈥檛 sound like me and you鈥檙e treating me bad. Well that鈥檚 three strikes. I don鈥檛 want to be an officer,鈥� he says. 鈥淎s opposed to, you look like me, you鈥檙e coming to my neighborhood, you鈥檙e policing our neighborhood and you鈥檙e treating me with respect.鈥�
Officer Cesar Herrera, the president of the Hispanic Police Officers鈥� Association in Cleveland, says reductions in community policing make it harder to have that interaction. Herrera says when he attends community meetings, he goes in uniform to drive home the point that he鈥檚 both a police officer and a neighbor.
鈥淚 was raised in Cleveland, I went to school in Cleveland, I work in Cleveland and I still live in Cleveland,鈥� Herrera says. 鈥淪o am I really that different from you and the rest of the community? I don鈥檛 believe so.鈥�
