Blue Mafia: Police Brutality and Consent Decrees in Ohio

By Tim Tolka

Blue Mafia tells the backstory behind two federal investigations of police brutality in Steubenville and Warren, Ohio, from the perspective of the victims, cops, attorneys, and officials who participated. The story is true crime but reads like a film noir detective novel. The book explores the events leading up to the historic reform agreements and their outcomes, using the career of a local civil rights lawyer who filed lawsuits against the police and acted as an informant to federal investigators.
In Steubenville, when attorney Richard Olivito defends a drug dealer claiming police misconduct, he begins to feel hunted. Later, he acts as an informant and collaborator to Justice Department officials investigating the Steubenville police, which results in a consent decree, or court-enforced reform agreement, the 2nd in U.S. history. A few years later, Olivito incites another federal Investigation in neighboring Warren, where residents have complained of police brutality for decades. This time is different because there Is a video.
Blue Mafia shows that some small towns have at least equally severe problem with police brutality and misconduct as many big cities, and it chronicles federal reform efforts on local police agencies during five U.S. presidential administrations, providing the most detailed account to date of police reform by consent decree and revealing the messy, sometimes tragic yet always human aspects of policing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1980962650
• ISBN13: 9781980962656
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"