Mutual Respect*
I'm sick of this
I’ve had a solid 5 months off from writing here, but I’m upset and typing fast and figured I might as well use my platform or something to get some words across.
It’s even easier today since it’s not like I need to go into a big background on something obscure in government going on, we all know at least some of what is happening.
Instead of focusing on the immense injustice, this largely will be just some of my own thoughts and what I’m frustrated with in my community.
I get that I’m a rich, white, suburban kid who can’t accurately comment on how bad the systemic racism is in our society. I’ll let POC speak to that and their experiences absolutely.
With that being said, I think criticizing the Columbus Police and this corrupt city is fair game for all. Here’s a bit on why they don’t deserve our mutual respect, and the reason there’s a * in the title here.
* I was sitting in bed browsing Twitter tonight, the big nightly event during a globally destructive pandemic, and saw this cool tweet with embedded video.
Pretty innocent video right, we want calm in our community and we can work together with the police force willing to change!!! to accomplish our progressive agenda.
It’d be cool if it was at all accurate, but of course it isn’t, and of course working with the police peacefully has been tried and doesn’t work.
Let’s start looking at this by looking at the chief himself. Last December Quinlan, a 30-year Columbus police department veteran, was promoted by Mayor Ginther (more on him later) to Chief of Police. This was after a month-long search to find a replacement for retiring Chief Kim Jacobs.
Mayor Ginther had a really great opportunity to finally make meaningful change in this city with this appointment and people were understandably hopeful. (For the sake of my argument here I’m not including building 700 identical overpriced shitty apartments with full real estate tax subsidies as meaningful change).
The mayor talked a big game and appointed a commission of community leaders to help find the replacement.
The Chief choice was down to 2 people, Quinlan, the interim chief, and Perry Tarrant the former Seattle Assistant Chief of Police.
During the process, while Quinlan was interim chief, a damning report last year showed that even though black residents of Columbus make up only 28% of the population police use of force incidents against blacks make up 50% of all use of force incidents.
This is not ok in any possible just world.
Let’s look at how eloquently Quinlan handled the department’s response to this report as interim chief,
Interim Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan didn’t respond to a request to discuss the findings.
To even get to the point of this decision, there was a lengthy fight to let the department look to outsiders to fill the role. The city and the Fraternal Order of Police (less of a union and more of an organized gang) had to go to arbitration to simply allow that.
What kind of union contract forbids outsiders from even interviewing for a top role?
Mayor Ginther decided on the insider rather than Tarrant, who was heavily supported by community and faith leaders as someone who would finally bring change and an outside perspective. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, leave it to Mayor Ginther to make the easy choice.
Here’s a local reverend on the appointment,
The Rev. Jefferey Kee, who was a member of Ginther’s search committee for a new chief, said he was “gravely disappointed” with Quinlan’s selection.
“There was a chance for us to have a visionary and an agent of change and we walked away from this great opportunity,” Kee said. “It says to me we’re OK with settling for mediocrity instead of aspiring to be a great city.”
The Reverend said it better than I ever could. Mayor Ginther is ok with settling for mediocrity.
The Columbus Police have been much much worse than mediocre, think back to just 2018 when they brutally murdered Donna Castleberry. Mediocre police departments don’t get their Vice departments disbanded by FBI investigations, only especially bad ones do.
If the Columbus police wonder why they don’t get mutual respect in Columbus, it’s because they disproportionally use violence and deadly force against people of color, had a Vice unit shut down by the FBI after a murder, and do much more harm to people of color in Columbus.
All of this just goes to show the backdrop of protests last night that are also taking place right now while I’m writing this. The Columbus police have had years of inaction and silence, while repressing POC, and the people are clearly sick of it.
That trend continued last night when the Columbus police escalated a peaceful protest by gassing protestors. Once again, it’s hard to wonder why there isn’t mutual respect in the community.
I wonder which side started it? The people loudly protesting about how they’ve been indiscriminately targeted, or the side empowered with a badge and gun who clearly pepper spray and attack the protesters.
Which side needs to practice mutual respect first?
Yelling, “fuck the police,” and, “black lives matter,” isn’t justification to launch pepper spray onto protestors.
The Columbus Mayor made a choice to keep the department the same in their racist roots, and the Columbus Chief of Police made the choice to escalate what was a peaceful protest calling for justice.
That’s of course par for the course for the Columbus police. I could go on with pages about how police unions cover for them, and encourage police to use violence. I could also go on and on with more examples of all the other injustices they’ve done.
Regardless, the evidence is clear. The Columbus Police don’t care about the citizens here and aren’t going to change. The protests are emblematic of that, people want change and the only way to do so is to make them listen.
For now I wanted to finish with something I tweeted about earlier today, a light reminder of who we’re dealing with at the top.
Columbus’ own Mayor Andrew Ginther, who had the pleasure of running unopposed for re-election in 2019, is a crook and an absolutely terrible mayor.
He shouldn’t even be mayor. There’s clear evidence that he took a $20,000 bribe from red-light camera company Redflex and their lobbyist John Raphael (who went to prison for it).
Call me an idiot or something, but I don’t believe that the guy giving the corrupt politician money should be the only one going to jail.
Mayor Ginther should be in jail, Quinlan and his mutual respect bullshit shouldn’t be mayor, and the Columbus police never should have escalated things last night.
That’s all without mentioning that George Floyd and so so many other POC who have been murdered by the police should be alive right now.
This whole writing really wasn’t meant to accomplish much, just to show how beyond repair one police department in one county in one state is.
If you’ve made it this far please chip into the Columbus Freedom Fund and help bail out some people who will be unfairly arrested tonight. I chipped in $20 and hope you can match me.
Godspeed to everyone out there protesting.