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| Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson speaks at a news conference announcing the settlement agreement with the City of Cleveland, Tuesday, May 26, 2015, in Cleveland. Cleveland agreed to overhaul its police department under the supervision of a federal monitor in a settlement announced Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Justice over a pattern of excessive force and other abuses by officers. The announcement comes three days after a white patrolman was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter charges in the shooting deaths of two unarmed black suspects in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire following a high-speed chase. The case helped prompt an 18-month investigation by the Justice Department. |
CLEVELAND
(AP) -- Cleveland agreed to sweeping changes in how its police officers
use force, treat the community and deal with the mentally ill, under a
settlement announced Tuesday with the federal government that will put
the 1,500-member department under an independent monitor.
The
settlement was made public three days after a white Cleveland patrolman
was acquitted of manslaughter for his role in a 137-shot barrage of
police gunfire that left two unarmed black suspects dead in a car in
2012.
Mayor Frank Jackson said the ambitious
plan that was worked out over five months of negotiations with the U.S.
Justice Department will be expensive and will take years to put in
place. But he said he sees it as a chance to set an example for other
cities.
The proposed reforms come amid tension around the U.S. over a string of cases in which blacks died at the hands of police.
"As
we move forward, it is my strong belief that as other cities across
this country address and look at their police issues in their
communities, they will be able to say, `Let's look at Cleveland because
Cleveland has done it right,'" Jackson said.
In
December, after an 18-month investigation prompted in part by the 2012
shooting, the Justice Department issued a scathing report accusing
Cleveland police of a pattern of excessive force and other abuses.
The
settlement is an expansive list of items aimed at easing tensions
between the police and the city's residents, especially in the black
community. Cleveland is 53 percent black. About two-thirds of its police
officers are white. The mayor and the police chief are black.
The
reforms were outlined in a 105-page consent decree filed in federal
court. It calls for new guidelines and training in the use of force; a
switch to community policing, in which officers work closely with their
neighborhoods; an overhaul of the machinery for investigating misconduct
allegations; modernization of police computer technology; and new
training in avoiding racial stereotyping and dealing with the mentally
ill.
An independent monitor approved by the
court will oversee the police force's compliance. Several other police
departments around the country, including those in Seattle and New
Orleans, are operating under federal consent decrees that involve
independent oversight.
The worst examples of
excessive force in the Justice Department report involved officers who
endangered lives by shooting at suspects and cars, hit people over the
head with guns and used stun guns on handcuffed suspects. Only six
officers had been suspended for improper use of force over a three-year
period.
The city is still awaiting a decision
on whether any officers will be prosecuted in two other deaths: that of
Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who was killed by a white rookie
patrolman last November while playing with what turned out to be a
pellet gun, and that of 37-year-old Tanisha Anderson, a mentally ill
woman who suffocated last fall after she was subdued on the ground and
handcuffed.
U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach
said that the overhaul "will help ensure the many brave men and women
of the Cleveland Division of Police can do their jobs not only
constitutionally, but also more safely and effectively."
Steve
Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, said
he and the union's attorneys are still studying the agreement.
"I'm
hopeful it has reached some good conclusions," Loomis said. "But the
devil is always in the details for these kinds of things."
Attorney
James Hardiman, chairman of the NAACP Criminal Justice Committee, said
his organization is looking at the agreement "with a fine-tooth comb,"
but added: "If I can assume everything I was told is true, it sounds
like a pretty comprehensive agreement."
The mayor said that when the reforms take hold, community policing will become "part of our DNA."
The
Justice Department has launched broad investigations into the practices
of more than 20 police forces in the past five years, including
agencies in Ferguson, Missouri, and, most recently, in Baltimore. Both
cities were convulsed by violence and protests in recent months over the
police-involved deaths of black men.
Then-Attorney
General Eric Holder said in December that the Justice Department was
enforcing settlement agreements with roughly 15 police departments,
including eight consent decrees.
Saturday's
verdict by a judge in favor of Patrolman Michael Brelo led to a day of
mostly peaceful protests but also more than 70 arrests. Dozens of church
parishioners also protested the acquittal in a downtown march Tuesday
afternoon just before officials announced the settlement.
Cleveland
has paid a total of $3 million to the families of the victims in the
2012 shooting, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. They were gunned
down at the end of a 22-mile car chase that began when police mistook
automobile backfire for gunshots.
Thirteen officers in all shot at the car; Brelo jumped onto the hood and fired the last 15 shots through the windshield.
