CLEVELAND — Two watchdog groups say city interference is crippling police oversight in Cleveland.
The Office of Professional Standards, or OPS, has been shut down for a week. Now, the man heading up that office, Marcus Perez, told News 5 Investigators he will resign.
Police oversight groups say the city isn’t investigating complaints about police misconduct fast enough.
The city says the Community Police Commission and OPS overstepped and released sensitive data.
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As a result, the city has locked some of the watchdogs out of their computers, and work is at a standstill.
Wednesday may have been the last time you saw OPS Administrator Perez in a public meeting.
During the Cleveland City Council budget hearing, Perez hinted he wouldn’t be with the city much longer.
"If you have questions, this will be my last budget hearing with the city,” Perez said.
The comment came after Council President Blaine Griffin didn’t allow a presentation submitted by Perez to move forward. Griffin told those at the table he didn’t want to put them in an awkward position.
"I did not want to insert Council into the middle of that because there was the potential that it could have some very sensitive information and due to the ongoing legalities with OPS, the police commission,” Griffin said. In one week, the city put on blast two independent police oversight bodies. Last Thursday night, a city spokesman said OPS released sensitive information in an email with a link to an internal dashboard.
It’s unclear who, if anyone, accessed it.
Earlier this week, Perez told News 5 that he blames the city for not marking sensitive information.
Perez is working on a dashboard of complaints against police officers which he says contains public information you could see at board meetings.
“I have some serious concerns. I always think first about our constituents, the people we entrust to file complaints that basically need to trust the system and feel like their personal private information was not shared,” Griffin said.
Earlier this week, the city condemned a different oversight body, the Community Police Commission, for publicly naming complainants and officers accused of misconduct.
The CPC says what it released was public record and blames the city for not redacting information if deemed sensitive.
“They’re not denying that they didn't investigate any cases. There's a deflection to blame us for whatever process they don’t agree with,” said CPC Co-Chair Dr. John Adams.
Not only is OPS shut down. But Adams says Commissioners haven’t been sworn in, so they can’t meet.
He says this isn’t what voters wanted.
“They voted for independent oversight but what is happening right now is currently oversight is under attack,” Adams said.
This all happened two weeks after News 5 Investigators interviewed Chief Federal Monitor Karl Racine about the consent decree.
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“It appears to me that we are on the right path now of improvement,” Racine said Feb. 7.
News 5 Investigators asked Adams if he thought Racine and the monitoring team needed to return to Cleveland to figure this all out.
“I wouldn't be surprised if they’re already trying to figure it out now,” Adams said.
The city says the monitoring team was immediately told about the matter with the Office of Professional Standards.
News 5 requested an interview with Mayor Justin Bibb. The mayor was not made available to answer our questions.
