CLEVELAND — Attorneys for the family of a woman brutally killed inside her home want an independent investigation into the police response, calling it a failure.
Neighbors and family say it took too long for officers to get to Carly Capek while she was being attacked earlier this month.
Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek, who heads the council safety committee, doesn’t know all the details in Capek’s case but says things will get worse in Cleveland if police don’t get staffing numbers up.
News 5 Investigators took a closer look at the timeline for the officers dispatched in Capek’s case to see what they were doing minutes before the call about Carly.
“We need the police, we need the police,” said a woman in the first 911 call on September 6.
The mother of four was being attacked inside her house on W. 78th street in the middle of the day.
Calvin Nettles is charged with Capek’s murder. He is being held in jail on a $1 million dollar bond.
Police records show the call originated as a priority one felonious assault at 12:32 p.m., one of ten priority one calls between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. that day in police District 2.
News 5 now knows what the first officer to respond was doing before the call.
At noon, he went to another priority one call, a ladder in the middle of I-90.
After that, he went back to the District 2 station when the call about Carly came.
Records show the cruiser was dispatched to W. 78th at 12:36 p.m.
It was noted as en route seconds later and arriving at 12:46 p.m., roughly 14 minutes after the initial 911 call.
News 5 Investigators drove a news truck at the speed limit from District 2 to Capek’s house, stopping at three red lights, in nine minutes.
We asked Councilman Polensek about response times and what should be an adequate response for police.
“Well, we would all like it to be well under 10 minutes, but when you’re dealing today with approximately down 300 officers in the city, then you take under consideration vacations, the number of officers that were out on COVID, it has created real problems,” said Polensek.
The city’s 2022 mid-year report shows a 9.6 minute median response time citywide for a priority one call. That is up from just under 9 minutes in 2021.
In District 2, where Capek was killed, the median response time was 9.5 minutes, up from 8.2 the year before.
We asked Polensek if officers could go from one district to another if there is a true need for a high-priority response.
“Oh they can, they can do that right now. It’s all based on the dispatcher, people in the zone car, it’s all about the communication that happens all the time,” said Polensek.
But Polensek says if you don’t have the staffing, a problem that is impacting public safety will only get worse.
“We get those calls from those citizens who say, 'I waited all this time, they’re not coming or they haven’t come.' I hear that stuff every week, along with my colleagues, so we’ve got a big problem here,” said Polensek.
Capek’s family attorneys plan to hold a news conference Tuesday about the response time in her case and what they call an apparent delay and dereliction of duty.
The union president says he wants to hear from the officers first before responding to questions about response times.
If you have questions or have had issues with police response time, we want to hear from you. Call 1-888-WEWS-TIP or email investigatortips@wews.com
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