Some readers have complained that we're unfair to Kentucky. So from now on we have to ask everyone we talk to if their family tree dropped its nuts in Cheviot, Newport, Fort Thomas or Fairfield.

        We have to fill out a form longer than an SAT test every time we speak to someone. It gets personal, too: tattoos, race, gender, age, drugs, drinking, attitude. There's even a “gang affiliation” blank: Crips, Bloods, Branch Norwoodians. Check one.

        I don't think so.

        If I have to fill out these boneheaded forms, I might be too busy to call anyone or
answer my phone, if you know what I mean.

        Nobody asked me, but it seems like making a Really Big Deal about where people come from is not the best way to show them you don't care about it.

        The whole thing sounds like No. 87 from “Dilbert's 100 Ways to Cripple Morale and Poison Public Relations.”

        Good thing it's not really happening at the Enquirer. I made it all up — based on the real form that Cincinnati cops are being forced to fill out every time they stop someone.

        It was mandated by City Council members to cover their seats in an election year by showing how tough they are on racial profiling.

        And guess what: A story last Sunday said the cops are not enthusiastic.

        Some cops say privately that they're backing off on routine stops and “beat” contacts, so they won't have to spend time filling out a nosey form that will only bring trouble from sniffy bureaucrats.

        And as the long arm of the law pulls back, Over-the-Rhine looks like the OK Corral: 47 black men have been shot by black men since the April riots.

        Fred Siegel, author of a book on urban riots, saw this coming. He warned a month ago that if Cincinnati blamed its cops, “They will simply back off and crime rates will skyrocket.”

        Sounds like he was right. I hear that some cops are job hunting. Morale is scraping bottom. And many wonder why they get no support from council members, who surrendered on a racial profiling lawsuit and declared the cops “guilty” without any proof.

        Police Chief Tom Streicher has been “totally consumed” by a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the police department, requested by the mayor. He says it's important to fill out the forms to show that profiling is exaggerated. But he sympathizes with beat cops.

        “Cops know in their hearts that if there are bad cops hiding in the system, asking them to tell on themselves by filling out a form is utterly ridiculous,” he said.

        “They're offended by it.”

        He says cops are naturally mistrustful of something that was put in place based on the “harmful preconceived notion that the police department is dysfunctional.”

        “Hell, yes, we make mistakes. But it's hard not to feel discouraged at the lack of appreciation when so many men and women are trying so hard, trying constantly to do a damn good job.”

        The chief says City Hall is just treating a symptom.

        “I've asked chiefs around the country who have been doing this (tracking profiling) for three or four years, and they say it just shows them what they already know. We deploy more police to crime-ridden areas, where there is more substance abuse and more poverty. The people who live there are predominantly people of color.”

        And that, he said, is America's race problem, not the fault of local cops.

        “If people want to turn their heads and not believe that, just look at the papers and what's being published every day,” Chief Streicher said. “Look at the shootings and what neighborhoods they're in.”

        Or look at it this way: Since one black man was shot by a cop, about 50 have been shot by violent black criminals that the cops are now supposed to arrest — very gently, because one mistake could cost the cops their lives or their careers.

        There's no space on the profiling form to describe how that feels.

        E-mail: pbronson@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/bronson

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