The Collaborative Agreement Was a Mistake

The current state of the CPD is founded on the response to, the relations forged in the wake of, and the subsequent policies drafted following the unrest for Timothy Thomas's murder in 2001. The vessel for this change was packaged under the Collaborative Agreement (CA). The result is a seemingly impenetrable police force armed with studies and data funded by the University of Cincinnati (UC), which was used to buy consent from the media and public, and to render an unrivaled level of officer impunity.

From 1995 to 2001, the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) killed 15 Black men. From November 2000 to April 7, 2001, they had killed four, including Timothy Thomas. Two weeks before Thomas was killed, a coalition including Cincinnati’s Black United Front (BUF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worked together to charge CPD with racial bias. This endeavor would go on for two years.

In the wake of the murders, civil unrest, and planning from BUF and ACLU, a legal memorandum of agreement between the Department of Justice, the city of Cincinnati, and CPD took shape. Drafted in April of 2002, this memorandum, colloquially known as the "Collaborative Agreement", is a measure claiming to uphold community participation in and critique of future police endeavors, with efforts to modernize the department through its technology, methodology, and social focuses. The agreement’s terms also necessitated the creation of the Citizens Complaint Authority (CCA) as a means for civilian review into serious police conduct.

This document, described as unprecedented and later looked at as a model for police and community collaboration, would be instrumental in manufacturing the narrative that CPD, as well as its operations, are legitimate and subject to community input and criticism.

The results suggest otherwise.

According to data compiled by policescorecard.org, whose team pulled 2013-2023 statistics from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Survey, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, and other databases, CPD continues to rank among the most costly, the most violent, and the least accountable police departments in the entire country. The numbers are revealing:

COST:

• CPD accounts for roughly one-third of the city budget. In 2022, Cincinnati spent $167.6M on police, in stark contrast to the $58.4M it spent on health or the $7.7M spent on housing. As of 2025, the dollar amount spent on CPD is $181,617,160.

VIOLENCE

• CPD has more police shootings per arrest than 81% of depts with 39 shootings from 2013-2023.

• CPD used more force per arrest than 96% of depts. with 2,074 incidents, coming out to 339 per 10k arrests.

• CPD killed 14 people, which comes out to 2.2 per 10k arrests, more than 79% of depts.

• According to CPD's website, there was a police force of 986 officers in 2022, which was more officers per population than 88% of depts. That number has risen to 1,053 officers with continuing pushes by both CPD and their union to lobby for more funds to account for issues in “recruiting.”

ACCOUNTABILITY:

• Out of the 5,172 citizen complaints, only 13% ruled in favor of civilians. 

• 332 were use of force complaints with 5% ruled in favor of civilians.

• 127 were police discrimination complaints with 2% ruled in favor of civilians.

In addition, inside the CA, under Section V. titled “Operative Provisions”, are terms assigning CPD with adopting the crime-solving methodology known as Community Problem Oriented Policing (CPOP). Per the RAND Corporation—a policy think-tank known for its involvement in both defense and police research—Problem-Oriented Policing “means diagnosing and solving problems that are increasing crime risks, usually in areas that are seeing comparatively high levels of crime (e.g. “hot spots”). POP is challenging in that agencies need to diagnose and solve what could be a wide range of crime-causing problems.”

This language is loaded with implications and innuendo:

• “Increasing crime risks” implies a narrow focus on specific types of crime, typically low-level street offenses, thereby justifying the operationalization of crime: turning complex social conditions into quantifiable data points that feed policing strategies and surveillance.

• “Areas” speaks to geographic data. From a police perspective, this leaves few possibilities, ultimately going towards impoverished (or underfunded) neighborhoods—OTR, Price Hill, Clifton, Avondale, etc.

• “Hot spots” is a reference to those “increasing crime risks,” compartmentalized by “area.”

An example of this can be seen in Cincinnati’s Place-Based Investigations of Violent Offender Territories (PIVOT) Unit. PIVOT itself is not a methodology, but rather a unit created out of a methodology. Per their website, “PIVOT is a strategy developed to address small areas where violence has been chronic and sustained.  This strategy focuses on identifying place networks that facilitate violence…”

It becomes increasingly apparent that the infrastructure articulated within the CA, that then goes on to be outfitted in CPD and lead to the creation of the CCA, has the window dressing of accountability only through its language. When considering the effects of the CA, and upon examining the trove of data it necessitated in its terms, it more closely resembles a marketing package that merely makes police policy and conduct more palatable, even if it ranks in the bottom on accountability.

Packaged under the ideology of collaboration and participation, CPD first sought efforts to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public by leaning heavily into their relationship with UC. Implicitly, there needs to be oversight of this implementation, which would ensure continuity; this leads to the introductions of former-Lt. Jim Whalen of CPD and Dr. Robin Engel of UC. In 2003, their working relationship forged the dialogue system between UC, CPD, and the UC Police Department (UCPD). The partnership alone resulted in millions of dollars of research being done in the name of "improving" policing, to the benefit of CPD. According to UC’s own website, Engel received $19 million of research funding under her between 2002-2025. Whalen boasted about this repressive collaboration in a comment obtained by the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy in 2013:

"As a Captain in the busiest police district in Cincinnati in 2003-2004, I had an epiphany that dramatically changed my perspective about the importance of being more than just effective at reducing crime. I learned firsthand the necessity of establishing legitimacy in policing... We had worked with a community group to implement a creative “road closure” in an inner-city neighborhood as a means to reduce a drive-thru drug market… Although successful, the initiative drew criticism from local business owners, elected officials, and the media as an extreme tactic that was likely unnecessary... A colleague suggested asking researchers from the local University of Cincinnati to study the project and provide an academic opinion... Within a few short weeks, the same community members, politicians, and media that were roasting us were now admiring this 'smarter' way of policing. The same words, spoken by researchers, had the desired effect and allowed us to move forward."

Where are we now? In May of 2025, CPD shot and murdered 18-year-old Ryan Hinton after responding to a call for a stolen vehicle. Bodycam footage shows mere seconds of Hinton running from the parked vehicle before being fired at. There has been little to no display of accountability on behalf of the CPD. In complete contradiction, District Prosecutor Connie Pillich declared it "a legally justified use of force," just like the UCPD in the murder of Sam Dubose in 2015 and CPD in the murder of Thomas in 2001. 

The CA only further enveloped police’s grasp on the city, and predictably has failed to deliver substantive change in form of power or contestation on behalf of the people. If we look at the shocking evidence of gentrification in Cincinnati and compare the two timelines, the case for the CA starts to look extremely grim.

The Collaborative Agreement was never a path to justice or transparency. It was at its inception and remains today a strategy to pacify unrest, rebrand repression, and solidify police power under the guise of reform. It gave Cincinnati a playbook for how to manage outrage without ceding an ounce of real control. More than two decades later, the same department continues to kill, brutalize, and operate with near-total impunity, now draped in academic legitimacy and procedural sheen. The CA helps shield the police from scrutiny while clearing the way for capital to flood disinvested neighborhoods, accelerating gentrification under the false promise of "safety."

What began as a response to rebellion has become the blueprint for its neutralization. But if this agreement was designed to provide legitimacy to an illegitimate system, then our task must be the opposite. We must strip away that veil of legitimacy. We must demand the defunding of CPD, the dismantling of its surveillance and paramilitary infrastructure, and the reinvestment of those millions into housing, public health, and community power. Cincinnati doesn't need smarter policing. It needs fewer police and a complete break from the capitalist logic that justifies their existence.