Article source for : A couple different views about Toledo police
Excerpts from an Aug 11, 2007 Joe Kidd press release posted at the Glass City Jungle titled "Joe Kidd’s Ride with the Toledo Police":http://glasscityjungle.com/wordpress/?p=1709#more-1709
Kidd said:
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With the Perrysburg murders on my mind, last night I rode along with uniformed officers of the Toledo Police Department as they responded to calls in south Toledo. I was impressed by their sense of commitment to the city, to make it a safer, better place to live. And I came away from my experience certain of only one thing: we must make Toledo Police the first priority of city government.
A City where residents feel secure in their persons and property is a place where people will want to live. A city where businesses do not have to fear the theft of their livelihood is a place where people will want to invest. To improve the quality of our lives, to make us safer, and to encourage investment in our city, I propose that we take the following steps to get more police on the street with the tools they need to prevent and respond to crime:
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Read the rest at the GCJ.
br. Excerpts from an Aug 7, 2007 Toledo Journal story titled "Are zealous police falsifying charges?":http://thetoledojournal.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=81188&sID=4
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DeAndre Ware Jr.’s biggest problem might be that he wasn’t a young white man leaning against his car, talking on his cell phone, on a street in the suburbs. Instead, the 19-year-old African American was leaning against his car parked on the central city’s Foster Avenue, a street constantly patrolled by police and where seemingly every person seen by police is suspected of drug selling or buying.
Police pulled up alongside Mr. Ware at about 9 p.m. on July 30, arrested and cuffed him, then searched his car. With no drugs or other contraband to be found, officers Eric Board and Charles LeRoux decided to get something for their efforts and charged the young man with loitering.
Mr. Ware isn’t the typical young man living on Foster, a low-income neighborhood. His good grades and athletic ability earned him acceptance at St. John’s Jesuit High School. After graduating, he enrolled at the University of Toledo, where he is a sophomore majoring in construction engineering. Mr. Ware also is a member of the UT Rockets’ football team, a redshirt freshman runningback. The 5-foot-8, 180-pound ball carrier is currently No. 5 on the depth chart for his position, UT’s sports information department said.
Ms. Ware said her son “has never been in trouble” with the police. Toledo Municipal Court records show he had only a traffic citation, issued last April, on his record, a court administrator said. The citation was “off docket,” or dismissed, she said.
Mr. Ware said he was tossing a football with a friend in an empty lot before his July 30 encounter with police. His friend went inside to use the bathroom and he heard his cell phone ring in the car. As he retrieved the phone, he saw a car coming up the street followed by a patrol car. The first car went by but the cops stopped alongside him, he said. He said one of the two officers told him, “You can’t be on the street. It’s against the law to be on the street.”
His mother said everyone living on Foster realizes there’s drug activity. But she said police seem to treat everybody with suspicion and/or take delight in harassing people. Young people have been ordered off porches and then charged with walking in roadway, she said. Police use the MF-word with young teens, she said. She was recently stopped by an officer because loud sound allegedly was coming out of her factory-installed stereo, she said. “Always harassing us. They do it all day, every day,” Ms. Clay said. “We can’t help where we live.”
Mr. Ware wasn’t taken to jail, but to the Scott Park district station, where he took a seat while officers Board and LeRoux compiled their report and issued him his loitering citation. He said that while waiting, an officer spoke to him. “He said, ‘Let me tell you something, I don’t like you, I don’t like your dad.’”
Mr. Ware said it was a lie when police typed that he had been “flagging down and approaching autos as they drove on Foster.” When he was leaning against his car with his phone, he said, in no way was he guilty of the officers’ claim of “blocking the free flow of vehicle traffic.”
Asked how he’d like the situation to turn out, Mr. Ware said he wants the loitering charge dismissed and for police to start treating residents on Foster with respect. “I’d like for them to quit harassing us like they are and let us do what we were doing,” he said.
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