CLEVELAND — In Ohio, 21 police departments are getting funding from the Department of Justice to hire police officers. More than $16 million in COPS Hiring Program grants will go to those 21 Ohio departments.
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“Recruitment and retention is a big issue for law enforcement in this country,” said Lisa Monaco, U.S. Deputy Attorney General.
Included in the grant award is $3.75 million to the city of Cleveland to hire 30 new officers.
Bill Hodge thinks about the unanswered questions he has about his brother all the time. Michael Hodge vanished nearly 20 years ago. The then-39-year-old disappeared from West 172nd Street near Puritas Avenue on March 6, 2004, after leaving a party.
“They’re always so busy. He’s constantly on the back burner, it seems like, so hiring more officers, I think it will make a world of difference,” said Bill Hodge.
Kenneta Bey hopes for answers too. Her son was murdered on Sept. 16, 2019. Johnshea Boyd Bey went to visit an old friend at her apartment in Cleveland while he was in town for a funeral. Bey said her son was murdered as he was leaving. “
"All day — it’s all I think about every second of the day,” said Kenneta Bey.
Cleveland Police Department is at 1920s staffing levels. Cleveland Police officers are stretched thin. In cities across the state and the country, recruiting and retaining officers is a challenge, including in Ohio and in Cleveland.
“They are facing a huge array of challenges around this country, and they are being asked to do a lot more with less, and so we’re trying to help them do more and meet the challenges they confront, and this funding I’m talking about today is just one aspect of that,” explained Monaco.
In the funding is more than $1 million in School Violence Prevention Program grants to three Ohio school districts. Nearly $2 million in Community Policing Development grants to five jurisdictions in Ohio, including Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.
We reached out to Cleveland Police recently about both cases, and they said both are open and active. Anyone with information about either case is asked to call Cleveland Police.
