Use of force data from dozens of police departments across the country compiled by a police accountability group shows overall Cincinnati police use force less often than many other departments, but that use of force is disproportionately used against Black people.
"The Cincinnati Police Department’s data reveals massive racial disparities in the use of force against civilians," Accountable Now said in a press release this week. "Despite Black people comprising 42% of Cincinnati's population, per 2019 Census Bureau estimates, 73% of the subjects of police use of force in between 2017 and 2019 were Black."
The disparity in Cincinnati is greater than Dayton, Cleveland, Indianapolis and seven other cities on the group's website. All of the cities had a gap of at least 20 percentage points, while Cincinnati had a gap of 27 points. Five cities had a larger disparity: Minneapolis, Dallas, Omaha, Orlando and Stockton, Calif.
All incidents involving Cincinnati police use of force are documented in a public online police database that is maintained by the city of Cincinnati.
The database shows that between 2016 until June 29, 2021 there were 2,212 use of force incidents involving Cincinnati police officers.
- 75% of the subjects were Black
- 15% of the subjects were juveniles. Census data show 22% of the population of the city is under 18
- In 33% of the incidents, the officers were Black.
- The neighborhoods with the most incidents were Westwood, West Price Hill, Over-the-Rhine, East Price Hill, Downtown and Avondale, but neighborhood data was missing from about a third of the entries.
Accountable Now allows users of its site to compare cities. Using the organization's metric of "individuals affected per capita," Cincinnati ranks favorable.
Of the 13 cities available in the comparison tool, seven have a worse ranking throughout all of 2017, 2018, 2019. And only two of the cities consistently ranked better: Omaha and Tulsa.
Accountable Now is an effort by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, established in 1950, to better track use of force on a national level.
According to the project's website, the goal is to collect use of force data from 1,000 law enforcement agencies this year.
In policing, force can mean a variety of things. When an officer uses a Taser or forces a person to the ground to compel someone to submit, that is reported as a use of force – at least in Cincinnati.
But the term covers a wide range of actions – from shooting and killing someone to an injury a person may have suffered falling during foot pursuit.
Reporting standards also vary widely between jurisdictions and states. Some jurisdiction consider it a use of force when an officer draws their weapon, others, like Cincinnati, don't.
An Enquirer report from 2020 showed that use of force in Cincinnati had been steadily declining for two decades along with the number of arrests and crime.
At the time, Cincinnati civil right attorney Al Gerhardstein pointed out that racial disparities and other problematic trends still exist when it comes to the department's use of force.
For instance, police used force against juveniles 40 times in 2019. In 36 of those instances, the juveniles were Black.
Gerhardstein said the last three people shot and killed by Cincinnati police – Omar Santa Perez, James Clay and Jawari Porter – all suffered from mental health issues.
The Enquirer requested a comment from the Cincinnati Police Department for this story. Police officials directed the publication to the Cincinnati City Manager's Office who had not replied to the request at the time of this report.
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