CLEVELAND — There is no evidence of racial bias in Cleveland police officers' stops, searches and seizures, according to a consulting firm the city hired to analyze the data.
The city released the results of the analysis by Sigma Squared on Tuesday, six months after the city first announced the firm found no evidence of racial bias in Cleveland police traffic stops in 2024.
In the city's news release, Dr. Tanaya Devi, Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist of Sigma Squared, said, "While the data reveal disparities in search rates, they do not show evidence of process bias in overall search decisions. We hope this analysis gives Cleveland a clearer picture of where things stand and where work remains."
RELATED: No evidence of racial bias in Cleveland police traffic stops in 2024, according to consulting firm
However, a 2024 News 5 and Marshall Project-Cleveland analysis raised questions about racial bias in Cleveland police traffic stops and searches after we analyzed similar data.
We analyzed nearly 17,000 encounters, defined by Cleveland Division of Police policy as any interaction between officers and people stopped for traffic violations or suspected criminal activity.
We found Black people accounted for nearly 63% of the encounters and were searched at least three times more than white individuals. But when it came to finding illegal items during those searches, contraband was recovered 37% of the time from Black people versus 32% from white individuals.
Jeffrey A. Fagan, a Columbia Law School professor, has studied police reforms for decades. He reviewed the 2023 Cleveland police data at the request of The Marshall Project - Cleveland and News 5.
If officers are searching Black residents more often than white people and not finding a disproportionately greater level of contraband, "that suggests they’re exercising some kind of racial discrimination,” Fagan said.
"They're using race as a pretext for making a stop,” he said. “The practice itself is leading to disparities which present constitutional problems.”
Read the full report: Cleveland police stop and search black drivers at higher rates despite DOJ oversight
The Cleveland Division of Police Consent Decree Monitoring Team also found Black drivers were three times as likely as white drivers to be stopped by Cleveland police in their analysis of 2024 traffic stops.
However, the team drew no conclusions about whether their findings indicated racial bias. Instead, the team said the findings indicate the need for further analysis, sustained oversight and targeted training, as well as corrective actions and further structural reforms.
Read more: Federal monitor: Black drivers are more than 3.7 times as likely to be stopped by Cleveland police
