by Nick Castele
A plan for the first year of Cleveland’s police reform agreement calls for the city to train all officers on a new use-of-force policy and to develop a plan for recruiting “from a broad cross-section of the community.”
The plan, which the monitoring team submitted Monday in U.S. district court, outlines how the city will begin to implement the consent decree reached last year with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a court filing, monitor Matthew Barge called the first-year goals “aggressive but realistic,” writing that the plan “asks the Cleveland community to participate directly and substantively.”
Cleveland faces several major deadlines this summer under the document. By June, the city must write a new mission statement, develop an officer recruitment plan and complete a study of division equipment and resources.
The city has until the end of the year to write a new use-of-force policy and train all officers in accordance with it.
The monitoring team is also working to set up consent decree “study groups” in churches, public housing facilities and libraries, Barge wrote.
Writing on behalf of the Justice Department and the city, Barge asked U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver to approve the plan.
Read the full plan below:
