CLEVELAND — During a two-hour court hearing Wednesday, the new federal monitor overseeing Cleveland Police reforms rebuked the city for failing to inform his team or the DOJ about changes to the collective bargaining agreement that impact how officers are disciplined.
Karl Racine said there's "no excuse" for Cleveland failing to share that changes aimed at improving police retention also water down discipline for minor offenses when they are generated by a citizen complaint.
Racine said it is "chipping away" at the intent of the federal consent decree. The goal of the decree is for the Cleveland Department of Police to achieve constitutional policing.
Racine and members of his team also said Cleveland could be further along in efforts to reach full compliance with the consent decree if the city were more cooperative, proactive, and transparent.
The team noted progress was made in several key areas, including crisis intervention and use of force.
However, team members said progress stalled, languished, or was downgraded in other critical areas.
During the status conference, the team also encouraged Cleveland to better utilize the data it gathers and to fully staff its Police Accountability Team.
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. said he may need to get more directly involved with the implementation of the consent decree in order to speed up Cleveland's progress.
The federal judge also said Cleveland may need to amend its new agreement with the two main police unions regarding discipline in order to adhere to the requirements of the consent decree.
Oliver Jr. has overseen the consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of Cleveland since it was signed in 2015. The agreement was signed after a DOJ investigation found Cleveland police officers "engage in a pattern or practice of excessive force."
The DOJ investigation was opened after a Cleveland police chase and shooting killed two unarmed people on Nov. 29, 2012, which has become known as the "137 Shots" incident.
13th Semiannual Report
The status conference followed the release of the latest report from the Independent Monitoring Team, which said the city made "demonstrable progress" towards meeting requirements mandated by the consent decree.
However, the team said there is still much work to do.
The 13th Semiannual Report is the first from the city's new monitoring team, which was selected earlier this year.
READ MORE: New report: Cleveland police have made 'demonstrable progress'
During an exclusive interview with News 5 earlier this week, Dr. Leigh Anderson, who was hired by Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to serve as the Executive Director of the Police Accountability Team, praised the city's progress.
"I think that the men and women of CPD should be very proud of that progress and that we are moving forward towards implementation of areas that were previously unheard of in the City of Cleveland," she said.
Anderson's job is to help Cleveland police reach full compliance with more than 400 reforms detailed in the consent decree.
Anderson said the city has reached some level of compliance with more than 280 objectives.
"I can tell you that the Police Accountability Team (PAT) is dedicated to not just checking boxes," she said. "We are dedicated to an actual culture change in the city."
"It has really been demonstrated with our use of force numbers; it has been demonstrated with our crisis intervention numbers, as well as our accountability and transparency numbers," she said.
However, during the hearing, Racine noted few areas of the decree have reached full compliance.
Community and Problem-Oriented Policing
During the hearing and in the report, the monitoring team also noted areas where progress has stalled or received downgraded compliance ratings.
For example, the report said the city has failed to embrace Community and Problem-Oriented Policing (CPOP), which focuses on developing relationships with community members to identify key neighborhood concerns and create solutions.
Despite developing a training curriculum, the report said the city "regressed in its compliance" and was downgraded to non-compliance as a result of inadequate delivery of the new training.
The report said the training officers currently receive may be part of the problem. During an in-service training class observed by members of the monitoring team, the report said they "observed a lack of engagement by participants, poor classroom management, and omissions of significant portions of the curriculum."
Anderson said the city has already taken steps to move toward compliance.
"I would argue that it (CPOP) is happening," she said.
She said it can be challenging to assess the impact of community engagement. She also said Cleveland recently received approval for free assistance from the DOJ to help the department implement CPOP practices.
Dangerously Understaffed
Dr. Anderson acknowledged the department's staffing issues present "great challenges."
"We want to make sure... that we have men and women on the street to help fight crime; we also want to make sure that they’re there to help people feel safe," she said. "But we also want to make sure that they’re there to really implement community policing and community-oriented policing strategies... and when officers are just going from call to call, it’s really hard to work with the community on some problems, however, that is happening.
"We have seen in the Fifth District, for example, that there have been officers that have worked with community members and store owners to really put up lights or to put up cameras to really decrease crime, and they’re working together to solve these problems collectively."
READ MORE: Dangerously Understaffed
For close to two years, News 5 Investigators have reported on the high number of departures from the department that started during the pandemic.
Since Jan. 2020, 648 officers have left the department.
The department is currently short close to 300 officers, based on this year's budget.
