Council’s action on police reform shows urgency

People keep using the word “unprecedented” to describe the nationwide movement for police reform that was sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis — for its intensity and for the length of time that protests and demonstrations have continued. On July 27, Columbus City Council validated the description by approving a slate of actions that came together startlingly fast.

As reporter Bill Bush wrote, “The speed at which so many major changes were pushed from the drawing board, through public hearings and into the city code — all during a COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted city operations — was unprecedented in recent history.”

Activists have been demanding a citizens’ review panel to have a say in allegations of police misconduct for years, with little to show for it. But less than nine weeks passed between Floyd’s killing — and the protests that broke out Downtown in response — and the council’s vote to give Columbus voters in November the chance to change the city charter to create such a panel.

Such a board will be only advisory unless and until the Fraternal Order of Police union agrees to contract terms that would give the board some say in discipline. But its mere creation, if approved by voters, would generate unprecedented public pressure for a contract change.

Along with the charter-change vote, the council agreed unanimously to revisions that long have existed only on activists’ wish lists:

• Restricting “no-knock” warrants, in which police are permitted to force entry into a property without notice. They typically are used to avoid having a subject destroy evidence. But they have led to tragedy when police go to the wrong address or when innocent people on the premises are startled into a reaction that gets them shot by police. The vote limits no-knock searches to more-serious crimes and only when no children are believed to be present.

• Prohibiting officers from supporting or belonging to “hate groups” — defined as those advocating crimes or violence against anyone based on race, ethnicity, nation, religion, disability, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. Adherence to a group with an abusive agenda is a clear red flag that an officer could be abusive. Banning such associations — and better yet, screening for them before hiring — could make the rare instances of abuse by officers even rarer.

• Banning ownership by the Division of Police of 10 items often associated with “militarized” or overaggressive policing, including vehicles with mounted weapons, camouflage and “signal blockers” that interfere with cellphones.

The council also approved spending for two independent investigations that should help guide the future of policing in the city. In one, former U.S. District Attorney Carter Stewart, working with the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, will examine the city’s overall response to the recent protests, including preparedness and communication.

For the other effort, the council authorized $500,000 — a tenfold increase of its initial allocation — for the law firm Bakerhostetler to examine police use of force and specific allegations of misconduct during the protests, some of which turned violent.

The integrity of the latter investigation is critical. Public confidence that both police officers and civilians are held accountable for abusive or illegal acts, coupled with the changes approved by city council, could be the start of building a relationship of trust between Columbus residents and their police.

The 5 o’clock White House coronavirus briefings are back, and President Donald Trump has decided he knows just what the summer revival needs: more Trump, fewer scientists.

In the earlier incarnation this spring, Trump was flanked at the briefings by the government’s leading public health officials. That show was abruptly canceled after Trump mused about using potentially lethal disinfectant or ultraviolet light inside the body as treatments, and the administration pivoted to talking about economic reopening.

Now, with the virus roaring back across swaths of the United States and the nation’s death toll passing 150,000, the briefings are on again, ostensibly to inform a public desperate to understand a relentless pandemic.

This time, Trump — who dislikes sharing the spotlight — has been conducting them as a one-man show, explaining that he’s the gatekeeper for the latest coronavirus data passed along to him by experts. “They (are) giving me ... everything they know as of this point in time,” he said last week, “and I’m giving the information to you.”

Yes. What could possibly go wrong?

For starters, the president may be among the world’s least credible sources of information about the coronavirus. Two out of three Americans don’t believe what Trump says about the outbreak, and with good reason. In his boundless effort to diminish a crisis that has become an existential threat to his reelection, he persists in vacuous cheerleading, spouting meaningless statistics and promoting miracle cures that are at best dubious and at worst harmful.

Americans who relied on the White House as their coronavirus source of information became, as a group, those most likely to downplay the significance of the outbreak, according to a Pew Research Center analysis — and behave in a manner that tragically fuels viral spread.

In the first briefing of the summer season, Trump struck a new tone, frankly acknowledging last week that the outbreak will probably “get worse before it gets better.”

Last Tuesday, however, things quickly went off the rails when the president approvingly cited a Houston doctor who, along with promoting outlandish COVID-19 theories, also links gynecological issues to dream sex with demons and witches. Even as Trump retweeted a video featuring the doctor, social media companies were rushing to pull it off their sites.

There’s obviously a right way to inform the public on the latest science-based findings about the virus, and do so with the imprimatur of the federal government’s executive branch, but without all this nonsense. One good idea considered and abandoned during internal White House discussions was to resume the briefings, but simply have them handled by experts at the Department of Health and Human Services.

A coterie of scientists the public has come to know and respect — including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost expert on infectious diseases; Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator; and Dr. Stephen Hahn, the head of the Food and Drug Administration — could do the talking and answer questions. Such expertise gets the highest trust ratings from Democrats and Republicans alike.

The more Americans understand and believe in the harsh realities of this highly contagious disease, the more likely they will take necessary precautions — wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands — to help control it until a vaccine comes along.

USA TODAY