CLEVELAND — The 14th Semiannual Report written by the Independent Monitoring Team overseeing Cleveland police reforms issued a scathing indictment of the city's progress, writing that Cleveland made "little progress" during the most recent reporting period.
From June to December 2023, Monitor Karl Racine wrote all ratings from the prior reporting remain the same— with the exception of one downgrade. He wrote, "By any measure, this static performance— akin to running in place— is insufficient."
Racine placed the blame on Mayor Justin Bibb and his administration.
In his "Letter from the Monitor," Racine wrote the city's police officers have "demonstrated commitment" to improve policing in Cleveland.
Then, he wrote, "The city's leadership would do well to follow suit."
He wrote that his team is ready to conduct a formal assessment of three critical areas: Crisis intervention, search and seizure, and use of force. The city's full cooperation is necessary to complete the assessments, according to Racine.
Earlier this year, News 5 reported on how the city withheld access to data and documents from the monitoring team until Judge Solomon Oliver Jr, the federal judge overseeing the city's consent decree, issued a ruling forcing Cleveland to comply with the monitoring team's requests.
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Racine said the city's "unwarranted" delays cost the city and its taxpayers "time, money, and progress" in fulfilling required federal reforms.
He also noted the city continues to delay providing documents to the Community Police Commission (CPC) and wrote he is "closely monitoring this issue to report on it in the next Seminannual Report."
The Cleveland Division of Police has been under federal oversight since May 2015 after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found Cleveland Police engaged in a "pattern or practice" of excessive force.
Cleveland's response
After News 5 reached out, the City of Cleveland sent us the following statement:
"The monitor negatively suggests the City’s performance as being “static” – yet, ironically enough in his last semiannual report [static1.squarespace.com] in October, he acknowledged that “progress is rarely linear.”
We strongly disagree with the assessment. We have dozens upon dozens of employees across various City departments who are working every single day to build on the substantial progress we have already made [clevelandohio.gov] and bring us closer to full compliance.
It’s apparent that the Monitor team is leaning on the data access issue that was initiated [clevelandohio.gov] by their federal counterparts and state officials to justify their ratings for this reporting period. This is not only disappointing, but is also patently false. They allege this was an “unwarranted delay” and that the City started “rolling back… [their] data access in April 2023.” Neither could be further from the truth. As you’ll notice in the attached email, the City made our intentions VERY clear in that we wanted to provide them with unredacted access to all records and tried to resolve this issue with the Monitoring team by requesting that we jointly approach the court. Unfortunately, the Monitoring team never responded to our request and let this issue drag out for months. Again, as indicated in the attached, the City paused access the same day we sent that email on December 29, with only 2 days left in the period this latest report was based on – which seemingly renders their argument invalid. It’s disappointing they would resort to dishonest information to justify their rationale.
The turnover within the Monitoring Team is also a frustrating component that the City has been dealing with for multiple reporting periods. Numerous individuals have left and others have been brought on, which requires significant onboarding to learn the inner workings of the City and Division of Police – all of which further contributes to the exact delays they have mentioned. Our residents deserve consistency and accountability within the Monitoring team, which are the same standards the City is held to.
We look forward to the upcoming assessments and hope our progress will be accurately reflected in the next report."
You can read the full report below:
