Private donors will spend at least $190k on Columbus police study. Here’s what we know
The Columbus Council on Tuesday unanimously agreed to participate in a privately funded assessment of the city’s police department that will cost at least $189,507.
A group of retired and current executives from Columbus’ private sector led the fundraising efforts and selected Baltimore-based Jensen Hughes, Inc to conduct the evaluation, Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson told the council.
Henderson has met with the executives since August 2021, though he did not identify the names of the people and organizations involved.
The funding for the assessment will be held by the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley in the newly formed Columbus Safe Streets Fund. Under the terms of the fund agreement, the mayor or City Manager Isaiah Hugley will give the nonprofit their approval before the consultants receive the funding, community foundation CEO/President Betsy Covington told the Ledger-Enquirer.
The assessment comes as the city struggles with police officer shortages, pay problems, morale issues and other departmental difficulties.
“This gives us an opportunity to come even more in line with what is considered best practices in law enforcement,” said Columbus Police Chief Freddie Blackmon. “I am in favor of the organization coming in to assess what we are doing.”
What will the assessment do?
In its presentation to the Columbus Council, Rob Davis, leader of the firm’s law enforcement consulting, laid out what the assessment will look like.
Jensen Hughes will begin by reviewing department documents, policies and procedures. Consultants will conduct interviews with officers, councilors, key community organizations and others, including Blackmon.
They will also take part in ride-alongs with officers and sit with investigators as they are going through cases.
The firm will analyze crime data and 911 call types. The department will then be compared against other police departments across the nation and the industry’s best practices. Consultants are expected to make at least two site visits, according to the company.
Jensen Hughes has worked with police departments from larger and smaller cities to assess entire departments.
The firm conducted an assessment of the Louisville, Kentucky, police department after officers fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her apartment in March 2020.
Jensen Hughes also offered the Minneapolis Police Department suggestions on how the agency could better handle crowd control after assessing police response in the days after officers killed George Floyd.
Davis told councilors that the outside funding source will not influence the outcome of the assessment.
“There’s no predetermined outcome,” he said. “We’re coming in as an independent, third-party assessor. ...This will truly be an independent analysis.”
The assessment comes after Columbus reported a record-breaking 70 homicides in 2021.
During that same year, 74 police officers resigned — the most in a 12-year period dating back to 2009. The department hired 37 officers in 2021, the fewest in that same period. The police department has roughly 130 vacancies, according to city data.
During an audit presentation during Tuesday’s meeting, Internal Auditor Elizabeth Barfield said lower-ranking officers are making more than those higher-ups, and that the issue is pervasive. The city is in the midst of conducting a pay study and implementing a new city pay plan to address those issues.
The last outside operational assessment of Columbus’ police department was conducted in 2013, Hugley said.
This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 3:04 PM.