The Shaker Citizens for Fair Ticketing PAC is seeking to get a ballot initiative in front of voters designed to “reduce brutality, increase public safety, and make police jobs safer,” organizers announced at a news conference Saturday.
“We have seen the shooting of two 14-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy just in the last couple of months,” said campaign manager Ethan Khorana. “This comes as a result of our failure to take new approaches to public safety and Shaker citizens deserve to feel safe in their own city.”
Based on data from the Shaker Heights Police Department, the PAC says that Black residents receive 71% of tickets, despite making up just 36% of the population in 2022.
They argue bias is also evident in the department’s use of force. A report from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies found nearly all of the incidents where officers used force were directed at Black or Hispanic people.
“With the hiring of a new police chief and a national conversation for reform, we must consider new approaches,” Khorana said. “Additionally, we must finally address systemic bias in our law enforcement.”
The initiative would create a modern, transparent public police records database to track ticketing and incidents using force in order to recognize biases and make complaint submissions easier.
“Everybody can win. We want to work with police, we want to work with the city government, we want to work with all the voters and community actors. We want to work with everybody,” said Khorana.
Organizers say they’re emphasizing ticketing because community members expressed feeling unsafe in ticketing situations. However, the initiative goes beyond that.
If passed, the initiative will expand the city’s Crisis Intervention Team by implementing a Non-violent Community Administrators Department that will not only distribute tickets, but patrol neighborhoods and respond to non-violent crimes and mental health needs.
These administrators would be licensed in social work, psychology or de-escalation and work in two-person teams that would patrol each neighborhood equally, according to Khorana.
“I’ve been in a couple of situations where either there was a drive-by shooter down the street from me or I had a gun pulled on me. In those cases, I was glad that people called police officers because I think that that is a very valuable case,” said Khorana. “But also, you know, I have a brother who has Down syndrome…and he gets some anxiety outbursts, and I was always taught since I was little not to call police officers because we don’t know what could happen to him.”
Additionally, the initiative would create and implement a civilian oversight board with a minimum of 35 members. The board would review the actions of officers, the aforementioned community administrators and community complaints.
Organizers point to reductions in gun violence and officer injuries in cities like Sacramento and Memphis, where similar reforms have been introduced, as well as a pilot program introduced in Cleveland last year to send social workers on emergency calls.
“It’s common sense reform that we’re scrapbooking together from what people have done across the country,” said Khorana.
The PAC doesn’t yet have a complete cost estimate but cites grants from the Biden administration and the Cleveland Foundation as opportunities to fund the programs, as well as possible state support. Organizers say they intend to publish an economic impact report in the next month.
“This is an economic incentive for the city of Shaker Heights because, with the passing of this ballot initiative, they’d be open to a vast amount of grants, federal, statewide and not-for-profit. It’s a bipartisan policy. And so there’s a large amount of grants that could fund us,” said Khorana.
In order to get on the ballot for November’s general election, he estimates the initiative will need roughly 664 signatures, 10% of the number of voters in last November’s election.
Because signatures can only be completed in person, organizers say there will be a mobilization effort in the coming months.
A 17-year-old junior at the Mastery School of Hawken, Khorana can’t yet sign the petition and won’t be eligible to vote for the initiative in November. However, he’s trying to get as many eligible voters as he can to sign.
“If anybody wants to slide into my Twitter [direct messages], I will drive to your house and get a petition from you…if not, I’m sure everywhere you’re turning you’re going to see some of our petitioners there asking for your signature,” he said.
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This article appears in Mar 8-21, 2023.