By Jane Prendergast
Enquirer staff writer

Wendell France, executive director of the Citizen Complaint Authority, came to Cincinnati from Baltimore, attracted by what he saw an innovative process and a spirit of cooperation. But now he has found contention in the city and it puzzles him. The Enquirer/GARY LANDERS

In three months as director of Cincinnati's independent police review agency, Wendell "Pete'' France says he has stressed professionalism and developed guidelines for his investigators to follow when they review complaints about officers' work.

The Citizen Complaint Authority, which France leads, was created as part of the Collaborative Agreement that helped end a yearlong investigation into the Cincinnati Police Department that was launched by the U.S. Department of Justice after the 2001 riots. Activists pushed for a more independent body to review allegations of misconduct against officers.

With that mission, the authority and police officers aren't always going to agree, France said. He and Fraternal Order of Police President Sgt. Harry Roberts recently were at odds over some perceived mistreatment of officers by authority investigators, which France attributes mostly to a lack of communication.

Now, both say they've worked out a deal under which a new notification process will ensure that officers learn about any status changes in the investigations involving them. France said he also has cautioned investigators about being professional and taping all interviews.

"I'm in an oversight role,'' said France, who said he's still a member of the police union in Baltimore. "Police departments have a lot riding on what we do here. But we have to be transparent and we have to be fair.''

The authority, at its Monday night meeting, will release its most high-profile decision since France took the job - the results of investigators' review of the November death of Nathaniel Jones. Officers hit Jones repeatedly with their batons after he came at them in a White Castle parking lot in North Avondale. An autopsy revealed that Jones was obese, had a bad heart and had ingested PCP.

France answered questions this weekabout his first three months in the job:

QUESTION: You've been a consultant with the Department of Justice, a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department. Why were you attracted to this job?

ANSWER: What I was attracted to and what I found were two different things. What I was attracted to was the oversight being built into the collaborative agreement. There seemed to be a spirit of cooperation that I had not seen. And I thought I would see if I could manage that type of process. It's new, it's innovative.

Q: What's different than you expected?

A: I don't see why there's contention. In this environment, we may never agree. Our personal likes or dislikes are irrelevant. But that just doesn't seem to be the case here.

Q: The agency existed for eight months without a director until you were hired in March. What did you do to set your tone?

A: We stressed the need for professionalism. While I didn't hire anyone, we have some people with strengths here. Probably the most fundamental thing was we talked about the investigative process. There was no internal underpinning of what an investigation should look like. So we created an investigative model that does two things - it's an attempt to hold people accountable, and secondly, it speaks to lessons learned. What do we see here that we should put out to the FOP and the officers and the chief?

Those two principles are what I believe are best practices for doing this kind of investigative work. ... So we're asking (investigators) to do a few more things than maybe they would've done prior to (his arrival in) April.

Q: A quote has been widely attributed to you about law enforcement being permeated with racism. Can you explain what you meant?

A: I teach a class and I did some lecturing on the history of policing. People who criticize the comments have no idea how the Irish were treated in this country, or how the Jews were treated in this country. You have to support that it was based on a racist culture. Police officers should know the history of policing. They should know it's not about racist behavior, it's about history.

Q: What patterns or trends have you seen in the cases you've reviewed?

A: I am required to identify any patterns and report them to my board and to Saul Green, the monitor, not to the Enquirer. And I would let Chief Streicher know what those patterns were that I was planning to report. I am independent. But there are some professional courtesies.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com