Steps to civilian police review board begin

How a civilian police review board would handle oversight of the Columbus Division of Police will be shaped, in large part, by 16 people who met Tuesday for the first time.

Mayor Andrew J. Ginther appointed the 16 members of the Civilian Review Board Work Group, which will recommend to the mayor and Columbus City Council how the review board would be set up and operate. The work group met Tuesday online via a video computer hookup.

“We are at a critical point in our city’s history. We need to move beyond the status quo to make our city more equitable,” Ginther told the work group during the meeting. “What you decide will have a lasting impact.”

Ginther noted that he intentionally put people on the work group who have criticized him.

“We want different experiences and points of view as we lay the groundwork for this important board,” he said.

Jasmine Ayres, a member of the People’s Justice Project appointed to the work group, said that she believes a successful outcome would be “when the first police officer is adequately punished for their transgression.”

The local Fraternal Order of Police union has expressed concerns about being shut out of the process of creating the review board and about the makeup of the work group.

FOP Capital City Lodge No. 9 also was upset that one work-group appointee is lawyer Frederick Benton, who helped defend Quentin Smith, the convicted killer of two Westerville police officers who was sentenced to life in prison instead of the death penalty. Other local lawyers jumped to Benton’s defense.

First, Columbus voters must decide in November whether to approve a proposed charter amendment that would, among other things, create a Civilian Review Board to review investigations of potential police misconduct.

The proposed charter amendment, though, doesn’t spell out the details of how the Civilian Review Board would operate, how members would be appointed, and a budget to operate it.

That’s why Ginther appointed the work group, which will meet at least six times and is expected to generate recommendations by November.

Ginther noted that Columbus is believed to be the only major city that doesn’t have some type of civilian review board of police.

The city council, responding to local protests over the May 25 death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers, passed a package of police reforms that included the proposed charter amendment.

Lawyer Ron Linville of the firm Baker & Hostetler, who has been retained by the city since the 1990s to help negotiate contracts with the FOP, also addressed the work group during the meeting. Linville told the members that creating a Civilian Review Board through a charter amendment would put the city in a stronger position. But, he said, under Ohio law, matters of discipline of police officers still would have to be negotiated with the FOP. jwoods@dispatch.com @Woodsnight