There are new questions for Cleveland’s Police Department after newsnet5.com uncovered another disturbing delay in service.
A Cleveland family said their East 126th Street house was shot up 17 times while the family and their child slept on April 25; but when they called police, records showed an officer arrived three hours later.
Even worse, Denethia Binns-Gamble said, a detective did not visit her house to process the crime scene for eight more days.
“This was negligent,” she said. "I was angry because that’s just a violation. Like, you know we don’t bother anybody...We don’t know who did it. We don’t know why they did it.”
Binns-Gamble said a commander later apologized and blamed the delay on an influx of other calls.
Her husband, Esmond Gamble, said he collected shell casings from the street himself while waiting on the police.
“You don’t care,” he said. "You know, because if it takes you eight days to come and process a crime scene, that’s ridiculous.”
The couple’s 12-year-old son was asleep upstairs when the shooting happened. Aluminum siding may have saved his life.
This latest delay comes as newsnet5.com has uncovered ongoing problems with the city’s emergency response, including sporadic 911 outages. Earlier this week, emergency lines were down for 30 minutes. All these took place at a time when the city is preparing to host the Republican National Convention, with about six weeks to go.
“You can’t even respond to a neighborhood shooting,” Gamble said, "How are you going to handle something if it happens downtown, if something breaks out. Are they ready for that? I don’t think so.”
A Cleveland Police spokeswoman did not immediately respond to newsnet5.com’s request for information.
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