CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland condemned the Cleveland Community Police Commission for releasing the names of complainants and police officers accused of misconduct Wednesday morning.
In an e-mail to News 5, a city spokesperson wrote, in part, that "what they chose to do yesterday by publicly releasing identities of both complainants and those they accuse was a highly inappropriate way of handling sensitive information."
(Read the city's full statement below)
Their statement comes just hours before the CPC plans to request an additional $350,000 to help achieve full compliance with the federal consent decree during the city's budget hearings Wednesday. The CPC received $2.2 million last year.
Uninvestigated internal complaints
The city's response also comes one day after the Cleveland Community Police Commission said the city is still failing to hold police officers accountable for misconduct.
The CPC said the city failed to investigate over half of the internal complaints made against police officers over the last six years, according to records they received from a public records request.
The request included the number of open human resources investigations against Cleveland police officers.
The city said the uninvestigated complaints were brought to their attention last month, which prompted the city to "immediately refer it for independent investigation to the Inspector General’s Office."
The records show that in 31 out of 44 cases, no one was assigned to investigate allegations of misconduct, including workplace violence, harassment and racial bias that date back to 2019.
This uninvestigated complaints included a case that resulted in the City of Cleveland paying a $2.5 million settlement to the employee who made the complaint.
Under the city's federal consent decree, which was signed in May 2015, Cleveland is required to investigate every allegation of officer misconduct in a timely manner, and discipline officers found to have violated the city's rules.
Missing information
The records are also missing key information.
There is no information listed under "date received" on a dozen complaints, so it's impossible to determine how long they've been languishing in the human resources department.
Cleveland Community Police Commission Co-Chair John Adams also said the data appears to be incomplete. There were no complaints from 2023 and only one from 2022.
Adams said failing to investigate the complaints erodes the public's trust in the department and is unfair to any officers who are innocent of wrongdoing.
Adams said, "An investigation needs to be done so that the complainants can have their investigations completed and officers who are accused of things - that they may not have done - that they don't have some sort of black cloud of an open investigation hanging over their careers."
Cleveland's response
News 5 Investigators reached out to the City of Cleveland Tuesday after receiving the CPC's news release about the complaints.
Below is the full statement a city spokesperson emailed to News 5 Wednesday morning:
"This message, on its face, is fundamentally-misinformed. As the entity that is responsible for police policy, the Community Police Commission (CPC) should understand these types of complaints are referred outside of the Division of Police to the City’s Department of Human Resources (see relevant GPOs attached).
Our Police Accountability Team already identified this issue last month – which prompted us to immediately refer it for independent investigation to the Inspector General’s Office. The CPC was apprised of the issue at that time, rendering yesterday's message as a mere amplification of something we are already working to address. We have identified procedures that can be better refined to ensure a more efficient process moving forward. The City takes all allegations very seriously and, as previously mentioned, has already referred this issue for an independent review.
The general standard is to maintain confidentiality to the best degree possible when it comes to HR complaints. The CPC disregarded these standards that other organizations follow. What they chose to do yesterday by publicly releasing identities of both complainants and those they accuse was a highly inappropriate way of handling sensitive information. They were provided these documents in a good faith partnership to help them complete their duties and responsibilities that are legally-required by the charter.
Their actions do not follow a trauma-informed lens and are completely contradictory to best practices when it comes to handling extremely-sensitive matters. The individuals who filed these complaints felt like they were wronged and were brave enough to speak up. The weaponization of this information is not only wholly inappropriate, but may have a chilling effect on our workplace environment as it was a clear breach of trust. With several new commissioners coming on board, we hope that the CPC will focus on collaborating TOGETHER rather than amplifying already-known problems that further pushes everyone apart."
Police unions response
In a news release sent out Tuesday afternoon, James O'Malley, President, F.O.P. Cleveland Lodge 8 and Andrew Gasiewski, President, C.P.P.A., also expressed anger and frustration over the CPC's decision to publish the names of complainants and respondents.
They said it violates standard human resources protections for complainants and is "slanderous" towards officers, given that most of the complaints remain unproven.
Their full statement is below:
"The Fraternal Order of Police Cleveland Lodge 8 and the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association are calling for the City of Cleveland to conduct an internal investigation into the release of sensitive City of Cleveland Human Resources information by the Cleveland Community Police Commission on Tuesday, February 18th 2025.
This act clearly violates the very principles and protections that all human resource complaints are supposed to protect. Thats why these are Human Resource investigation's in the first place!
This action forces biased conclusions without merit or sustained investigative dispositions. It erodes due process and fair / impartial investigations and frankly, is slanderous in nature. Our taxpayers deserve better.
For Cleveland Police officers and supervisors who put their lives on the line daily to be treated like this by the "oversight" civilian body of the city police Division is completely inappropriate and counterproductive. We expect action to be taken and the same level of scrutiny that is applied to our officers be applied to those who violated city policy.
Accountability has to be across the board- period.'"
