By Robert Anglen
The Cincinnati Enquirer

He is taking on one of the most critical jobs in Cincinnati's history, but Michigan lawyer Saul Green insists the success of reforming the police department - and installing a new era of police-community relations - is not about him at all.

Seth Green (AP photo) | ZOOM |

"It's up to the citizens of Cincinnati to make this work or not work," he says. "I should help facilitate it. I should help record it and report the progress... But it is not about me."

The city's first police monitor lasted three controversial weeks on the job in October.

Low-key and determined is how Mr. Green's supporters describe him. And officials in cities he once investigated for alleged discriminatory police practices say the 55-year-old international business and immigration lawyer is probably the best man for such a sensitive and important job.

Mr. Green's former co-workers, as well as members of the nine-person team he will lead in Cincinnati, call him a champion of civil rights and say that as a U.S. Attorney he was determined to help big city police departments cross the racial divide.

"How we work through these issues is going to tell a lot about us - as communities - not just in Cincinnati," Mr. Green says. "What's going on in Cincinnati, to a great extent, is similar to issues we are facing here in Detroit. These are issues that are present in so many cities in our country."

Mr. Green, the first African-American U.S. Attorney to serve in Michigan, in 2000 began an ongoing federal investigation of the Detroit Police Department that focused on fatal police shootings and prisoner claims of mistreatment. He also initiated investigations in several smaller cities, saying his office would take an active role in investigating other allegations of police discrimination.

One such case was the Detroit suburb of Eastpointe, where minorities in the late 1990s said they were being unfairly targeted by the police department.

"The Justice Department conducted a civil rights investigation of us regarding traffic stops, you know, driving while black," Eastpointe City Attorney Robert Hribar says. "(Mr. Green) had a lot of suggestions and recommendations."

After some initial fears over learning that the U.S. Attorney's office and the Department of Justice were conducting an investigation, Mr. Hribar says the city was treated fairly and professionally.

"It's not like we were singled out," he says. "We didn't think we were violating anybody's rights."

Mr. Green brought in statistical experts and hired a former police chief from Southern California to review procedures. While no criminal charges were brought against officers, Mr. Hribar says Mr. Green also had staff members watching the way officers behaved.

"Yes, it was adversarial. But I must say that we had a good rapport with the U.S. Attorney's office," Mr. Hribar says. "Mr. Green has always had a good reputation in the Detroit area. When I saw in the paper that he had been chosen (as Cincinnati monitor), I felt that he was probably a good choice."

Partnering with citizens

The monitor will provide the key oversight of the two settlements the city made in April in the aftermath of 2001 riots, which were sparked by the police shooting death of a fleeing unarmed man in an Over-the-Rhine alley.

The settlements ended a Justice Department investigation and suspended a federal lawsuit that accused Cincinnati police of racial profiling and decades of discrimination against African-Americans.

For the next five years, the monitor is to ensure the police department meets a series of deadlines to overhaul use-of-force policies, create standards for investigating citizen complaints and establish standards for tracking problem officers. The monitor also is supposed to collect data on when officers draw weapons from their holsters and oversee a series of community efforts to establish a new system of community-police relations.

"I absolutely do believe in this process," Mr. Green says. "One of the things I tried to do as a U.S. Attorney was build the community through partnerships.''

That means getting business, churches, politicians and residents involved with the police department, so that both sides can see where the other is coming from. He says that takes time and trust. But he says it is a sure way to establish public safety.

"One thing that gets talked about easily and gets tossed around a lot is community policing," he says. "People say the words a lot, but they don't take the time to do what is involved."

Mr. Green says Cincinnati's settlements provide a process to get people involved, and get them talking.

Born and raised in Detroit, Mr. Green received a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1972. He was appointed U.S. Attorney for the eastern district of Michigan by President Clinton in 1994 and served for seven years.

Before that, Mr. Green was the top lawyer for Wayne County, which includes Detroit. He worked from 1989 to 1993 in an administration credited with rebuilding the county's parks and recreation programs, revitalizing transportation systems, and helping develop downtown Detroit's Comerica Park and Ford Field.

Mr. Green also spent 13 years as chief lawyer for the Detroit field office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

He now works for Detroit's largest law firm, Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC, which has about 300 attorneys. He was recently named head of the firm's new corporate crime group. The group was created in response to a growing number of corporations under criminal state and federal investigations. It is designed to help corporate clients prevent and detect criminal activity, and to represent company officials or boards.

In August, Mr. Green worked with New York lawyer Barry Scheck to free a man who spent 17 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. Mr. Green asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review the methods Detroit police investigators used to obtain a confession from the man while he was a patient at Detroit Psychiatric Institute.

Mr. Green is a lifetime member of the NAACP and current president of the University of Michigan Alumni Association. He is married and has a son who attends University of Michigan.

Pay issues resolved

Of 11 original applicants for the Cincinnati monitor job - which included auditors and teams of lawyers, security specialists and police consultants from New York to Los Angeles - Mr. Green was considered the top choice among lawyers for the Department of Justice, the city, the police union and the Black United Front, an activist group that filed the lawsuit.

But when Mr. Green refused to change members of his team, he was passed over for the job.

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott appointed Berkeley, Calif., lawyer Alan Kalmanoff on Oct. 10 after becoming convinced the parties involved in the settlements would not agree on a single candidate.

He resigned Nov. 13 after refusing to answer questions about the scope and cost of his job, and submitting a $132,000 bill that included numerous controversial charges.

City officials, who have agreed to pay for the monitor as part of the settlement, estimate that Mr. Green and his team will cost taxpayers about $6.5 million over the next five years.

Before accepting a second offer to lead the Cincinnati team, Mr. Green says he made sure the issues that plagued Mr. Kalmanoff's three weeks in office had been resolved.

Among those: A new payment structure that leaves Judge Dlott in charge of releasing payments from a city-funded escrow account; a new system that gives all parties a chance to review bills quarterly; and an agreement over the total cost of the job.

"I needed to know whether that had been worked out," he says. "We talked our way through it."

Green `respected universally'

Mr. Green says parties had to agree to leave his nine-member team intact.

"We put together a team based on the needs we saw in Cincinnati," Mr. Green says. "We have a very talented team. The members are experienced in many areas of law enforcement."

Richard Jerome, a former U.S. deputy associate attorney general, will serve as deputy monitor in Cincinnati.

"Our approach will be independent and objective," he says.

Mr. Jerome, who oversaw police integrity issues at the Justice Department, says Mr. Green was one of the people brought in from across the country to discuss racial profiling with local, state and federal law enforcement officers.

Neither Mr. Green nor Mr. Jerome would discuss specifics about Cincinnati and how the monitor job would be handled. Both said it was too early in the process.

Mr. Green's team includes John Williams, an attorney who previously worked in the city solicitor's office.

Sharon Zealey, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, calls Mr. Green a superb choice for the job.

"His district was considered a model for many U.S. Attorneys offices, including mine. He is respected universally by lawyers, by law enforcement, by the judiciary. I like to say some of my best ideas were borrowed from him," she says.

One of those ideas was what he called the Federal and Local Law Enforcement Executives, a monthly meeting to heighten cooperation between local and federal authorities.

"I think his record speaks for itself," Ms. Zealey says.

"He's always done the right thing."

E-mail ranglen@enquirer.com

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