CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland will not reopen the selection process for the 2nd District commander position within the Cleveland Division of Police despite the Cleveland Community Police Commission's decision not to recommend the only candidate for the role, Interim Commander Timothy Maffo-Judd.
In an email, Chief Communications Officer Sarah Johnson wrote, "The matter is closed, and the city does not plan to reopen the selection process at this time."
Timothy Maffo-Judd has served as interim commander of the city's second district since late 2024.
According to police records, when he was a member of the city's bomb squad, Maffo-Judd sent text messages to colleagues that were "discriminatory, offensive, and derogatory."
For example, court records show Maffo-Judd used an anti-gay slur in a text message while wishing one of his colleagues a happy birthday.
A separate 2022 complaint filed against him by a colleague alleged Maffo-Judd used the same anti-gay slur to refer to other members of the bomb squad "on numerous occasions."
Maffo-Judd was suspended for five days and agreed to additional training as part of a settlement agreement in July 2025.
Cleveland Community Police Commission
"What concerns me most about the allegations is just that they happened," Cleveland Community Police Commission Co-Chair John Adams said.
He voted against recommending Maffo-Judd for the commander role.
"We have qualified officers with cleaner records," he said. "I just couldn’t support that promotion.”
"I think that we need to set a precedent that we're going to hold a high standard and I think that promoting someone with this in their background, I just don't think that's the right precedent that we want to set," he said.
Commission Co-Chair Sharena Zayed also declined to recommend Maffo-Judd.
"The reason we took this so seriously is because of the number of complaints we received due to this appointment," she said. “Everywhere I go, people are talking about this. They’re pulling me to the side and telling me how disturbing this is.”
The city's second police district includes the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland and neighborhoods the center serves.
The community center declined to comment for this report.
"I don't think that he is necessarily a bad individual," she said. "The fact that he was able to kind of slip through the cracks and the complaint against him was not investigated prior to his promotion... that just shows me that a lot of balls were dropped in this entire process."
Johnson declined News 5 Investigators' request for on-camera interviews with Mayor Justin Bibb and Public Safety Director Wayne Drummond.
It is unclear when Maffo-Judd will officially be promoted from interim commander to the permanent position.
