friends of Bones

Brothers, Perry.Cincinnati Enquirer; Cincinnati, Ohio [Cincinnati, Ohio]20 Mar 2000: B.1.
PDFSave as PDFCiteCiteEmailPrintAll Options

Abstract

City Manager John Shirey — who outraged many panel members in December by issuing final discipline against an officer before the panel had finished its review of the shooting — has postponed disciplinary action against Officer Carder until the panel completes its review. Cincinnati’s Office of Municipal Investigations, a city agency required to investigate every time an officer fires at a citizen, found the shooting unjustified.

Full Text

The Cincinnati Enquirer

With one controversial police shooting review behind them, Cincinnati’s seven-member Citizens Police Review Panel tonight will start examining a 1998 shooting that left a Corryville man seriously wounded.

The panel will meet at 6 p.m. in Evanston to review the case of Officer Daniel Carder and shoplifting suspect Timothy Blair. A 5-year-old bystander was injured in the incident.

City Manager John Shirey — who outraged many panel members in December by issuing final discipline against an officer before the panel had finished its review of the shooting — has postponed disciplinary action against Officer Carder until the panel completes its review.

“That’s the proper way of doing it,” said Paul De Marco, a Cincinnati attorney and panel member, “because as it turned out in the Michael Carpenter case, the (Internal Investigations) report that he relied upon reached the wrong conclusion.”

The panel faced unexpected obstacles and strong criticism during and after its review of the fatal police shooting of unarmed motorist Michael Carpenter. The panel found the shooting unjustified and made several recommendations for change in the way police handle deadly force situations.

Cincinnati’s internal investigations unit found that the officers involved in the Carpenter shooting were justified in firing at the 30-year-old man during a March 19, 1999 Northside traffic stop, but internal investigators determined that the officers had committed several tactical errors. The division’s homicide investigators and the Hamilton County prosecutor’s office also found the shooting justified.

Cincinnati’s Office of Municipal Investigations, a city agency required to investigate every time an officer fires at a citizen, found the shooting unjustified.

“He (Mr. Shirey) needs to hear from us,” Mr. De Marco said.

Although the shooting of Mr. Blair occurred in 1998, Mr. Shirey said he asked if the panel wanted to review the case because he only recently received disciplinary recommendations for Officer Carder from the police division.

The panel typically reviews only cases that happened after city council created it in January 1999.

The Blair case began on Nov. 6. Police say a security guard followed Mr. Blair out of the Kroger on East McMillan Avenue, believing he had stolen a bottle of non-prescription painkillers. The guard alerted Officer Carder, who was working an off-duty detail, and the two approached Mr. Blair. As he jumped in his car and swung the door shut, he hit the guard in the knee.

Officer Carder punched through the window and tried to pull Mr. Blair out of the car. The car started to move and the officer was dragged along. He said he tried Mace before he fired twice at Mr. Blair’s chest.

Mr. Blair slumped over and his foot hit the gas. Officer Carder broke free before the car slammed into a van, which then lurched onto a sidewalk, pinning 5-year-old Donald Bush III underneath. Donald suffered permanent injuries, stemming from swelling on his brain, after being hit by the van.

The shooting, which left Mr. Blair in a wheelchair, would have been prohibited under a policy implemented late last year, which bans police from shooting into moving vehicles unless an occupant is using deadly force other than the vehicle. The police division exonerated Officer Carder, but he was cited for several errors, including shattering the car window and trying to pull the man out. OMI also ruled the shooting justified, but recommended discipline against the officer for tactical errors.

Mr. De Marco said as long as it has access to all of the reports and evidence in the case, the panel should complete its review of the Blair shooting within 60 days.

Ishton Morton, community liaison for the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was the NAACP’s chief negotiator in the talks that formed the panel.

He said since its first meeting in October, the panel has done an “excellent job,” although it was undercut by Mr. Shirey’s action during the Carpenter case. Mr. Ishton also said he hopes the panel will take a closer look at police policies and procedures in future cases.

“For changes to be made they have to be made in the system,” Mr. Morton said, “and the system controls the procedures.”

Mr. De Marco said the panel closely examines police policies and procedures in each case. But recommendations for change in those areas will be case-specific.

“I think the policies and procedures would come into play in a case where panel members would conclude that a particular officer satisfied all of the policies and procedures, but panel members were still left with nagging concerns about the officer’s conduct,” he said.

Keith Fangman, president of Cincinnati’s Fraternal Order of Police, criticized the panel’s work on the Carpenter shooting and questioned whether the group had overstepped its bounds by “investigating” the shooting rather than simply reviewing the completed reports by the police and OMI.

“The ordinance that created them clearly does not empower them to conduct their own investigations,” Mr. Fangman said.

Mr. De Marco said the panel considered its visits to the scene of the shooting, viewing of the car Mr. Carpenter was driving and calling of witnesses appropriate parts of its review, and within the powers granted the panel.

“It wasn’t an investigation, it was what you do to gain a better perspective of something that was described to you in words,” Mr. De Marco said. “We will continue to do those things. If anyone believes that we are to accept at face value any report or any evidence without testing its credibility, they don’t understand what this panel was designed to do.”

The panel will discuss the Blair shooting at 6 p.m. today in the Evanston Community Center, 3204 Woodburn Ave. For more information call 352-2499.

Word count: 954

Copyright 2000 – Cincinnati Enquirer – All Rights Reserved