CLEVELAND — They say they’ve asked police for help with crowd control in Cleveland’s Warehouse District before, and now the calls are getting louder.
Last weekend’s mass shooting that wounded nine didn’t come as much of a surprise to some who live in that downtown neighborhood.
“I don’t want people to be afraid of downtown,” Julie O’Boyle said.
City leaders and local law enforcement organizations are meeting to discuss officer retention, recruitment and deployment ahead of a safety summit next month.
For the first time, Sunny Nixon watched the mass shooting surveillance video shared with News 5.
“Terrifying, yeah, there’s no reason something like this should happen,” Nixon said.
But Nixon and her neighbor, Julie O’Boyle, say it was only a matter of time.
“We often do hear what sounds like could be gunfire, sometimes it’s fireworks, sometimes it’s cars backfiring; it really does get really rowdy noisy after midnight,” Nixon said.
Cleveland’s Warehouse District is their home and has been for years.
“We love it down here,” O’Boyle said.
But say it’s not just the noise Friday through Sunday.
O’Boyle says their building’s walls and windows are used as bathrooms.
“As far as the crowd control, the police just stand around and try to maintain it, but they are not real active, and we’ve asked for it; we’ve asked 'can you settle them down,'” O’Boyle said.
Police said the division assigns officers to the Warehouse District and includes members of the traffic bureau for traffic control during popular times on weekends.
Aside from that, police say there are regular patrols in cars, on foot and on bikes by the Downtown Services Unit.
O’Boyle suggests adding police on horseback.
“I would like zero tolerance down here when something happens; shut it down,” O’Boyle said.
Nixon said she enjoys being in a busy neighborhood but wants to make sure it's still safe.
“It’s a concern where we want to make sure we’re building the neighborhood responsibly. We like being in a neighborhood that’s active, but there’s always a balance between finding a safe place for homeowners where they feel safe and comfortable and having a vibrant nightlife that feels good to everybody,” Nixon said.
Nixon also said she wants some transparency from the police about the state of investigations.
“Then at least we have some metrics and understanding on our we improving are we not do we have the right resource allocation do we need to be putting additional pressure on our council people,” Nixon said.
She credits the police for a quick arrest in the mass shooting but wanted to know what to look out for.
“It’s pretty scary to think we didn’t even know what the car looked like," Nixon said.
Both won’t move out of the Warehouse District. But they said they have the will to help make things better. They’d like an officer to join them in the conversation.
“We’re willing to do a neighborhood watch, but we have to have that support,” O’Boyle said.
The suspect in the mass shooting is expected in court Thursday morning.
Police say a motive or additional information remains under investigation.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
