CINCINNATI — There was a 47% increase in "serious complaints" about Cincinnati police officers to the city's police oversight agency in 2022, according to a report presented Tuesday to Cincinnati City Council's Public Safety and Governance Committee.
The Citizen Complaint Authority's report shows CCA opened investigations on128 citizen complaints in 2022. CCA received an additional 156 complaints in 2022 that were reviewed but didn't prompt an investigation, according to the report.
The WCPO 9 I-Team's review of dozens of CCA investigations shows many of those cases are based on alleged civil rights violations that include citizens accusing officers of excessive force, discrimination and other civil rights violations.
The CCA presentation on Tuesday didn't reveal how many complaints in 2022 were sustained or found to be false. Those details have previously been provided in CCA's annual reports.
"Traffic stops were the circumstance that was most strongly correlated with serious complaints," CCA's Executive Director Gabe Davis said.
Davis said he believes the increase in more serious complaints in 2022 is probably related to more people having contact with police as people come out of the pandemic and increased awareness about CCA's role.
Davis said CCA has started reviewing CPD traffic stops to see if there are "patterns" that can be identified to reduce interactions with police that prompt complaints.
"Our job is really to prevent complaints," he said. "It's a challenge."
Davis told council committee members that the hiring of four new investigators helped CCA nearly double the number of cases it completed in 2022 compared to 2021.
CCA's 2021 annual report shows nearly half of the allegations investigated were proven to be false. In many cases, evidence couldn't prove or disprove the allegations. In 15% of the allegations that were investigated, CCA sustained the complaint.
Davis said the recent hiring of four new investigators helped CCA reduce its backlog of complaint investigations to about 100 cases.
He said about 40 of those cases are more than a year old.
The backlog should be eliminated in 2023, according to Davis.
A complaint filed by Anthony Hogan in July 2021 became one of those backlogged cases.
Hogan — who uses a wheelchair and said he was partially paralyzed — complained that two CPD officers violated his rights, used excessive force and repeatedly made vulgar or otherwise insulting comments about him.
CPD police body camera video of the incident, requested and reviewed by the I-Team, shows Hogan cursing officers Michael Smith and Kevin Newman soon after they responded to a Kroger to investigate a complaint about Hogan's behavior.
"Man, suck a d***," Hogan told the officers after they asked a security guard to watch him. "How the f*** you watch me?"
After Hogan continued cursing loudly at the officers, body camera video shows they arrested Hogan for disorderly conduct.
The officers picked Hogan up out of his wheelchair and took him to their police vehicle.
Police body camera video shows Hogan laying on the pavement next to the car.
Once Hogan was pulled inside the vehicle, Officer Newman shut the door on Hogan's foot, according to the CCA investigation.
"You thought it was funny," Hogan told Newman on the body camera video.
"It's hilarious," Newman told Hogan, according to the CCA investigation.
The CCA investigation also found that both officers ridiculed Hogan while transporting him to jail.
"You have to be one of the most ignorant people I've ever met," Newman told Hogan, according to the CCA investigation.
"How’d you become paralyzed? I can take a guess," Smith said to Hogan, according to CCA's investigation report. "You're an ignorant f***."
At one point, according to the CCA investigation, Hogan urinated on himself.
"You peeing on the sidewalk was funny as f***," Newman told Hogan after the officers brought him back to his home, according to the CCA investigation report.
CCA's investigation report, which was approved last fall by its board, found that officers Newman and Smith violated their authority, used excessive force and were discourteous and committed other violations of department policy.
CPD reprimanded both officers only for how the language they used when speaking to Hogan, according to department records.
"The Cincinnati Police Department polices its own," Cincinnati police union president Dan Hils said. "We don't need the CCA thinking they know better."
Davis said CCA can help the police department identify problems that can reduce complaints.
"We may be able to spot things that our colleagues at CPD perhaps have not spotted previously," Davis told the city council committee on Tuesday. "You get a fresh set of eyes, fresh perspective."
After the meeting, Councilman Scotty Johnson — the committee chair and a retired 33-year CPD officer — said CCA and CPD need to work together to help improve policing and the relationship between the department and the community.
"We gotta make sure that we're collaborating on every angle to make sure we're getting to the truth," Johnson said.
Iris Roley, a longtime community activist and a city of Cincinnati consultant on the collaborative that created CCA 20 years ago, said CCA investigators need faster access to police body camera video so they can more quickly investigate complaints.
"It is now time to ensure that the chief knows and the city manager knows, and we come up with a solution sooner rather than later," Roley said.
Sgt. Anthony Mitchell, a CPD spokesman, said the department makes CCA requests a "priority" and cooperates with their investigations.
Roley said legal actions, a lack of funding and the pandemic combined in recent years to slow down CCA's response time to investigate complaints.
CCA is supposed to conclude complaint investigations within 90 days of receiving a complaint. It took CCA more than 14 months to complete the investigation of Hogan's complaint and file a final report.
The disorderly conduct charge filed against Hogan was dismissed.
The I-Team has made several unsuccessful attempts to reach him for comment.
