Occasionally it can be counter-productive for a person to complain about something that ticks him off, as is the case with a recent history lesson involving the Cincinnati Police Department.
A Porkopolis column April 23 about Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. being forced to reimburse the city for using the department's Honor Guard at his aunt's funeral last year generated mostly positive feedback and one irate caller.
The column mentioned how the chief appeared on talk radio to defend a budget decision he made in defiance of a city council directive. Streicher told listeners he was trying to avoid a deficit that could result in police layoffs. We pointed out that simply was implausible: City officials last laid off police officers in the late 1970s, and they've actually increased ranks and hired 135 officers in the past seven years despite predictions of deficits in almost every year.
One anonymous male caller left a message taking us to task. The caller correctly said the last police layoff was in 1984, a mere 24 years ago instead of 29 years ago as we'd published.
"You guys never get your facts right," the caller sputtered into the phone, before accusing CityBeat of being "anti-police" and hanging up.
Like police officers, columnists are human and sometimes make mistakes. And good columnists, like good officers, admit when they make an error and own up to it.
Now is an appropriate time to recall how Streicher initially denied to The Cincinnati Enquirer that the Honor Guard appeared at his aunt's funeral in the first place. Only after being confronted by the city manager did the chief write a personal check for $1,767 to cover the expenses.
Whether that amounts to owning up or being caught red-handed is a matter for readers to decide.
The '84 police layoff, however, brings to mind some particularly noteworthy details.
The U.S. Justice Department sued the city of Cincinnati in 1980 for failing to enforce the federal Civil Rights Act, alleging the department failed to recruit black or female recruits for its ranks. The lawsuit said the department used questionable selection standards that reinforced the situation.
After negotiations, a consent decree was issued in 1981 that set as a goal for the department to have its ranks roughly be proportional to the number of blacks and women in the city's labor force. To achieve this goal, it adopted an affirmative action plan that gave preferences to black and female applicants for entry-level appointments.
But when the city was facing a budget crisis in 1983 and decided to lay off 23 officers, those proposed by the department were three black males, four black females and seven white females. They all had the same day of hire as about 40 white male officers who weren't facing layoffs.
After a complaint, a federal judge intervened and reconfigured who was to be let go.
This was about the time when disgruntled officers, to protest the layoffs, drove their cruisers in front of City Hall, turned on the sirens, left the cars and locked their doors while the vehicles blared outside city council offices.
Like many of Streicher's antics in subsequent years, there were no adverse consequences after this sterling example of professionalism and maturity by some of our city's finest.
Porkopolis TIP LINES: 513-665-4700 (ext. 147) or pork@citybeat.com
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