CLEVELAND — In the wake of voters approving Issue 24 last November, the City of Cleveland and the Department of Justice submitted a joint amendment to the police consent decree. 

What You Need To Know

  • The City of Cleveland and Department of Justice are seeking to amend the consent decree imposed on the city’s police department

  • The federal government imposed a consent decree on the Cleveland Police Department in 2015

  • The decree lays out a process for handling police accountability

  • The consent decree amendment is due to the November 2021 passage of Issue 24, which will form a Community Police Commission to handle police oversight

The amendment will go before a U.S. District Court judge March 17. The amendment would allow the city to implement Charter Section 115, which creates a new Community Police Commission, restructures the disciplinary process for police reviews, changes the review process for police training, and removes the Civilian Police Review Board from reporting to the Chief of Police or Public Safety Director. These changes are a direct result of the passage of Issue 24.

“We are moving quickly to incorporate Charter Section 115 into the Consent Decree and build a national model for police reform. Once approved, we can move forward with creating the new Community Police Commission and reforming our oversight process,” Mayor Justin Bibb said in a statement

The Department of Justice imposed the consent decree in 2015. The consent decree was implemented after the DOJ determined that there was a pattern of excessive force and operational and structural issues within Cleveland Police. The consent decree required the police department to make a number of changes to its policies, practices and procedures to address these issues.

The Community Police Commission will have final authority over establishing the policies, applications and examinations by which new police recruits must be sought out and recruited and screened, including screening for bias, and could conduct bias screening with existing members of Cleveland police.

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