CLEVELAND — Cleveland Police have reached a significant milestone in reaching compliance with federal reforms.
The Independent Monitoring team overseeing reforms found that Cleveland police used force constitutionally in nearly all incidents they reviewed in their assessment of the department's use of force.
The team found 97% of the department's level one and level two uses of force in 2024 were constitutional.
Level one and level two uses of force are incidents where officers use non-lethal force.
Police chief's reaction
"From my perspective, we have implemented policy changes, trainings and really changed the culture within the division," Cleveland Police Chief Dorothy Todd said. "Now we went through the test and that test revealed the changes are working, and we are doing constitutional policing here and it's just an assessment of the work that we've put in."
"I can tell you the division has changed drastically," she added. "Not only about what we do, how we police, how we engage with the community, but about the accountability systems that are in place. Everything is about transparency. It's about fairness, and its, there [are] definitions and there's a defined route of how things should be handled."
Other assessments
"We've seen substantial compliance with not only constitutional policing but in areas where force is used, it's used sparingly, proportionally, and if it's not it is actually caught within the chain of command," Dr. Leigh Anderson, who leads the city's police accountability team, said.
The monitoring team has also assessed crisis intervention, search and seizure, recruitment and hiring, staffing, equipment and resources, and training. The department received upgrades in each category.
"It wasn't cosmetic. It wasn't quick but it was done right," Anderson said.
What's next
Anderson said the next assessment will focus on community engagement and community-oriented policing, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Cleveland Division of Police has been under federal oversight since May 2015, after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found Cleveland Police engaged in a "pattern or practice" of excessive force and raised concerns about additional civil rights violations.
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