Cincinnati's Citizen Complaint Authority loses head with Gabe Davis' departure

Patricia Gallagher Newberry, Cincinnati Enquirer
·3 min read
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Gabe Davis conducts a monthly meeting of Cincinnati's Citizen Complaint Authority in February 2023. He'll leave the agency next month to take over as CEO of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.
Gabe Davis conducts a monthly meeting of Cincinnati's Citizen Complaint Authority in February 2023. He'll leave the agency next month to take over as CEO of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.

The head of the agency that investigates complaints against the Cincinnati Police Department has resigned to head a non-profit criminal justice reform group.

Gabe Davis will start as CEO of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center in early August. The 38-year-old Cincinnati native had been director of the Citizen Complaint Authority since September 2020.

Davis called the policy center position a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity … to really do something big as pertains to justice reform.”

In his new role, he hopes to address the complaints of incarcerated persons – from medical needs to solitary confinement to prison violence – with more “true impact litigation.” He also wants to expand beyond Cincinnati and Columbus, where the policy center currently operates, into other parts of the state.

Davis said his work at the Citizen Complaint Authority, and an earlier position as a prosecutor in the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice, have prepared him to head OJPC.

At the Complaint Authority, Davis worked on reducing a backlog of cases. The agency is on track to clear that backlog by the end of this year, he said. It has about 60 cases that are 90 days or older right now, down from 140 at this time last year, he said.

Davis said the agency also became more transparent during his tenure, reporting police responses to its recommendations.

The Complaint Authority has grappled with clearing cases and getting police compliance since it was created in 2003. The controversial agency was launched in the wake of racial unrest that erupted when a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed Black man.

The city will conduct a national search for Davis’ replacement, with an interim director to be named when he departs, City Manager Sheryl Long said Monday via email.

Davis was the seventh director or interim director of the Citizen Complaint Authority, hired for $140,000 a year. The salary range for his replacement will be $120,000 to $167,000, Long’s office said.

David Singleton was the fourth employee of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center when he hired on as executive director in 2002. He left the center, now with about 10 employees, on July 1 to teach law and run a pro-bono law practice in Washington, D.C.
David Singleton was the fourth employee of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center when he hired on as executive director in 2002. He left the center, now with about 10 employees, on July 1 to teach law and run a pro-bono law practice in Washington, D.C.

Davis will be taking over for David Singleton, who ended 21 years as executive director at Ohio Justice and Policy Center on July 1.

Singleton, 57, will begin teaching law at the University of the District of Columbia next month, and representing old and new clients in a pro-bono practice.

He is making the move to follow spouse Verna Williams to Washington. Williams signed on as CEO of Equal Justice Works there last September, positioning law students for public interest law work, after teaching law and serving as dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School for two decades.

Singleton focused on “second chance” programs at the policy center, helping people returning from prison to land jobs, find housing and navigate the legal system.

Most recently, he led the center’s 2019 launch of Beyond Guilt, designed to free “over-punished” but guilty inmates. It has won freedom for 45 individuals deemed rehabilitated after long terms – including one profiled in the New York Times – and helped launch an umbrella group for similar efforts in other states.

“We’re not going to make a meaningful dent in mass incarceration unless we figure out how to free people who have been convicted of real serious crimes – and have been in for decades and who have changed,” Singleton said.

Singleton led the center without pay since 2007, when he began teaching law and collecting a salary from Northern Kentucky University.

“He’s changed a lot of lives,” said David Zimmerman, president of the policy center's board.

Gabe Davis attends a 2020 Meet the Candidates Night, hosted by the Cincinnati Enquirer. A Cincinnati native and son of a retired Cincinnati police offer and Head Start manager, Davis lost his campaign to serve as Hamilton County prosecutor that year.
Gabe Davis attends a 2020 Meet the Candidates Night, hosted by the Cincinnati Enquirer. A Cincinnati native and son of a retired Cincinnati police offer and Head Start manager, Davis lost his campaign to serve as Hamilton County prosecutor that year.

What's left undone for Gabe Davis – who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2011, 20 years after Singleton earned his law degree there – to take on? Efforts toward an Ohio law that would allow judges, not just parole boards, to release inmates with life sentences and clean prison records.

With such a law, Singleton said, a judge could determine “it doesn’t make sense to keep this person locked up anymore.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: who is leaving citizen complaint authority?