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Semiannual report confirms Cleveland Police failing in critical areas due to understaffing

Posted at 7:34 PM, Sep 23, 2022
and last updated 2022-12-13 09:47:31-05

CLEVELAND — A scathing new report from the federal team monitoring the city found Cleveland Police are still struggling to hold officers accountable and meet standards spelled out in the consent decree.

The team’s concerns mirror our reporting here at News 5, which revealed the department is dangerously understaffed.

Seven years after monitoring started, the 144-page semi-annual report says Cleveland Police are still struggling.

It also confirmed what we’ve been telling you for months.

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1 out of every 4 Cleveland Police officers has left the job during the pandemic

Thanks to the low salary and morale, the department is losing more officers than its hiring.

The semiannual report found there are “significant and critical areas” where Cleveland Police remain in noncompliance with the 2015 federal consent decree, including accountability, community relations and staffing.

We told you 404 officers left during the pandemic.

The report says the city’s not only doing a bad job retaining officers, it also found a lack of “coordination and direction” when it comes to recruiting officers.

It also says police hired people even after red flags turned up in their background investigations.

The report comes a month after Mayor Justin Bibb said he wants out of the consent decree.

“The quickest we can get out of this decree, the better it will be for the police department and the taxpayers so we can use that money to reinvest back in, long-term,” Bibb said last month.

But the decision is not up to him. It’s over when a federal judge decides it’s done.

It seems destined to drag out after this report, which, among other problems, found Cleveland is faling to properly conduct investigations into officer-involved shootings.

One glaring example: the report says an officer shot his partner and lied about it, but was never punished.

The report also found Cleveland takes too long to investigative complaints against officers and needs to be more transparent with the public.

The consent decree is supposed to reduce the use of excessive force by officers, which the report says is happening. The report also acknowledges the city has improved how it deals with people experiencing a mental health crisis.

RELATED: City at ‘critical stage’ under consent decree

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