CLEVELAND — Leigh Anderson has always admired her grandfather, William Anderson. 

She said he was one of the first Black police officers in St. Louis, and while growing up, she thought she’d follow in his footsteps.

“He said that there are more ways that police officers need to be helped other than becoming a police officer myself, and so that is what I’ve been doing," she said.

Anderson has built a career in police accountability and oversight in cities across the country.

She’s served on the City of Ferguson Federal Consent Decree Monitoring Team and has had roles focused on public safety through the Office of the Inspector General in Washington D.C., Chicago, and Oakland, California.

In November 2022, she came to Cleveland to become the executive director of the new Police Accountability Team.

“I come to this with empathy and expectation," she said. "As much as we want the consent decree to end, what we want is the actual implementation of reform to take place."

Cleveland police have been under a consent decree since 2015 after a Department of Justice investigation uncovered a pattern of excessive use of force.

The Police Accountability Team’s main goal is to bring the department into compliance so it can end that federal agreement.

“We want to do this correctly and not quickly," Anderson said. "And so when we reach the area of substantial compliance with the consent decree we still have two more years to go to maintain that compliance and make sure that there isn’t any backsliding. So, we know that from whatever the end date is we have an additional two years for that process to be over and so we’re looking at maybe another two to three years."

Day-to-day, Anderson is building relationships.

She checks in with the Office of Professional Standards, the Community Police Commission and the Civilian Police Review Board. She also goes on police ride-alongs.

Anderson said meetings with city, community and law enforcement leaders like Deputy Chief Dorothy Todd are key.

“To have someone who’s an independent outside voice that is saying yes you’re going in the right direction or no that’s not the right direction is so helpful for us," Todd said.

“Police and the community are the same even when they’re not," Anderson said. "They both want safety. They both want accountability and they both want to be able to live in a place where there isn’t excessive force."

The Police Accountability Team does not have oversight of the police. It’s an outside entity within city hall.

It’s currently a team of one. Anderson is actively looking to hire an attorney, two performance auditors and a policy analyst. 

“So, one of the goals that we have is to work ourselves out of a job," she said.

Anderson said ending the consent decree is about more than alleviating the administrative and financial burden on the city.

She explained that the process of coming into compliance involves three areas: policy and procedure, training and implementation, and assessments and audits. 

“We are about 99 percent complete with all of our policies being written for those particular areas, and we are moving into the training and implementation phase, and we have areas such as use of force, crisis intervention, and search and seizure which we’re hoping to move into the assessment phase pretty soon," Anderson said.

And that progress is something Deputy Chief Todd wants the public to keep in mind.

“The perception is that we’re not making changes and that’s not factual because all the facts aren’t put out there," Todd said. "It doesn’t show that we’ve made all these significant changes to better our agency."

Anderson said even after the consent decree ends, the Police Accountability Team will be here to stay in some capacity as an internal monitor. 

“The hope and the goal is that eventually we will be proactive in this space and become a model for 21st-century policing," Anderson said.

The Police Accountability Team does not replace the Cleveland Police Monitoring Team, but works alongside it.