CLEVELAND — Thirty more officers will be deployed to fight crimes like shootings and recent carjackings.
Last fall, News 5 reported the city will receive a $3.75 million dollar federal grant to help hire new officers.
Watch our report on the grant received in the player below:
Interim Safety Director Wayne Drummond said they’ll identify 30 veteran officers to join violent crime reduction teams.
On Monday, Cleveland will seat a new police academy class at a time when there’s an officer shortage and safety fears.
“We’re budgeted 1,298; we’re down to approximately 1,157, so we need quite a few officers,” Director Drummond said.
Drummond said finding qualified candidates is a challenge. We asked where you find people to fill the positions.
“It’s a combination of hopefully you can find them right here in the city of Cleveland would be great. The main and most important thing is to find the right individuals that want to give back to the community,” Drummond said.
Drummond hopes by the end of summer, when the academy class graduates, they’ll take 30 veteran officers and assign six to each of the five neighborhood districts.
They’ll work with existing violent crime reduction teams and with people in the communities.
Academy officers will backfill the officers taking on those roles.
“Even after 6 months you’re still learning the job. It takes a couple years to really become comfortable with becoming a police officer,” Drummond said.
The veterans will be looking for people who pull the triggers in carjackings, shootings and aggravated robberies.
“We know where those hot spots are so we can actually be really laser focused in our efforts and we go directly to those areas and we’re very strategic in what we do. Just not a blanket approach,” Drummond said.
Last October, Pattie Capps thought a carjacker was going to shoot her.
They stole more than her SUV and cell phone; they also took her sense of peace.
The nurse stopped at a mini-mart on W. 117th Street to cash in lottery tickets when a man pulled a gun on her.
“There was a lot of fear, but then I became angry too because I was afraid," Capps said in October.
Five months later, Capps has her SUV back but doesn’t know if police are even close to getting the bad guys.
She said she’s getting through day by day and wonders if this new strategy will make much of a difference.
News 5 Investigators asked Drummond who’s looking at current cases while the city gets through the new police academy and new teams.
“I don’t want people to think, our general public to think we’re not investigating those currently assigned to our violent crime reduction teams because we have current violent crime reduction teams plus we have detectives in all five districts,” Drummond said.
Cleveland will match the $3.75 million grant with more than $4 million for a total of just over $8 million over three years to cover the officer salaries.
We asked Drummond what would happen after that.
“It's all on the city of Cleveland and our general fund,” Drummond said.
Public Safety can apply for the grant every year as long as it is available.
The city council finance committee will vote on the federal grant money program on Monday.
