CLEVELAND, Ohio — “We had what I call in Cleveland a perfect storm. We had the consent decree. We had Issue 32, which the citizen says we believe we need better policing, safety force services, more officers, so they for the first time in what 28 years, voted for the tax increase, and then we have an administration who is supportive of systemic change, and that's a big deal.” Sgt. Charmin Leon said. 

Reforming a police force is no small task and those at the forefront of change say it doesn't happen overnight. Detective Marie Clark and Sgt. Charmin Leon are on the Cleveland Police Department’s public safety recruitment team. They say reform starts with recruitment.

• The CPD is actively recruiting in non-traditional ways like using social media and barber shop talks to build better relationships 
• It’s a way to better connect officers with the communities they serve
• The department is also focused on inclusion efforts

“In recruitment videos when they will highlight SWAT, when they will highlight people chasing other folks, so, if you're attracted to that, that's what you believe that policing entails and the truth is that's not the majority of what we do.” Leon said. 

Clark says when she was recruited in 2006, the test she took to become an officer focused on academic skills and physical capabilities. 

“It was a general knowledge test, similar to like the SAT or ACT that, you know, you would take in high school, and while that tells us that, you know ,you're educated, it doesn’t tell us what kind of police officer your’e going to be,” aaid Clark. 

In 2018, the department overhauled its hiring procedures to include deeper assessments of mental and emotional qualifications.

“It looks at your team orientation, it looks at your level of enforcement, it looks at your critical thinking skills, all those things that are necessary to employ the tenants of community policing,” Leon said. 

And there are more changes. In order to better connect officers with the communities they serve, the Cleveland Police Department is now actively recruiting in non-traditional ways. 

“It’s not just an ad in the newspaper. We're using a lot more social media, which we know the younger, you know, folks are using these days. We're in the colleges, we're at the community, you know, fairs and festivals. We're trying to get out in front of the public and tell people about this job and that we're hiring and that we want them to come work with us,” said Clark.

They aim to educate potential recruits on how policing in the city has evolved — to include emotional intelligence.

“Before we had a different mindset of what it meant to police, you know what I mean? But this is, and that's why we call it policing in the 21st Century,” said Clark.

Sgt. Charmin Leon says transparency in law enforcement is no longer optional. 

“Social media, the body cameras, the cell phone cameras, they are showing our dirty secrets, right, and they are showing things that the community has been talking about for years, and not to own it and address it will never…that's the barrier that will not be removed if you don't own it in that way,” Leon said. 

Newer recruits say they realized immediately that it's important to build healthy, positive relationships with residents. 

The department dedicates more time than ever to community engagement projects — holding barbershop and hair salon talks to listen to neighbors.

“We need to be able to talk to people, that's our day-to-day job is to talk to people. We go out and we might be a business owner, might be just, you know, someone that committed a crime, but you got to treat everyone the same,” CPD Patrol Officer Mark Bahrijczuk said. 

“You can start building rapport with the community members... from there, now you can make friends in the community, they may be able to help you with investigations in the future with follow-ups,” said CPD Patrol Officer Mark Kvach.

The department is also focused on inclusion efforts when it comes to recruitment. The number of women and minorities in the current academy class has doubled, marking a major difference from when patrol officer Ashley Graham was 1 of only 4 women of color in her 2014 class. 

“Even when I would work basic patrol. even grown people will say I’ve never seen a female officer, an African American female officer, this is the first, and I'm like, yeah, we're here, we're all here. The kids are what I really love about it because that little girl saying I want to be a police officer... that's something that they're working on even more and more, which is awesome,” Graham said.