A report by the U.S. Department of Justice found the Columbus Division of Police does not keep records adequately enough to determine if racial bias exists within the department.
The report released in early August first lauded Columbus for officer training and wellness, but the nexus of the report was to determine if any racial bias exists in the department's practices. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther requested a review of the department's policies and procedures nearly three years ago.
The report said it was unable to make that determination due to a lack of data. It said the DOJ "cannot definitively state that (CPD) is doing things very well, nor can it identify any underlying problems that may exist."
"Determining whether bias is at the root of this distribution of the CDP’s (use of force) is not possible by simply looking at population demographics. For the CDP and the public to draw informed conclusions relative to the racial disparities that exist with (use of force), far more robust data collection must take place," the report said.
The report called for "enhanced technological capabilities" and that defeciencies in how the department reports data are responsible for the majority of its organizational shortcomings, because sufficient data is not readily available to rigorously assess use of force, track internal affairs investigations and enhance the CDP’s Early Intervention System.
The report looked at use of force committed by officers at the department except for officer-involved shootings, which are investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The report found tracking of racial data incidents when officers use force was a key issue. The department ranked uses of force on levels of severity from Level 1 to Level 8. When an incident was Level 1, race was not tracked.
Level 1 use of force includes when police tackle someone, display a gun or use pressure point techniques to force a subject to comply. These account for 81% of the departments use of force incidents.
Level 2 use of force includes tasers, pepper spray, tear gas or batons. Level 8 incidents involve deadly force.
The report said the department needs to start tracking race in these instances.
Even with a lack of racial data, the report still found officers used force more often against Black people than white people and arrested Black people more often than white people.
The report said it wasn't clear if the differences in the number of arrests and uses of force were caused by racial bias.
For Columbus as a whole, regardless of the race of suspects, the report found no evidence of excessive use of force by the department.
The report also criticized more widely the department's record keeping on use of force incidents, calling it "cumbersome at best" and prone to human error. It said the department keeps paper records at present and should switch to digitizing them instead.
Ginther said in a statement it plans on analyzing the report to continue building on reforms and successes.
"We have not wavered in our commitment to build on the reforms and many successes of the Columbus Division of Police. This is why we invited the Department of Justice to conduct an intensive review of the division, including its use of force policies and practices. We received that report and look forward to analyzing the findings," Ginther said.
A spokeswoman for the Columbus Division of Police said a statement wouldn't be made available on the report's findings until Friday.
The report was completed by the DOJ's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and Jensen Hughes, a Baltimore-based consulting company.
