The rollout of a police reform deal was shared with Cleveland’s City Council today.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern Ohio District, Steven Dettelbach shared highlights of the consent decree with council members as ideastream’s Brian Bull reports:
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Dettelbach covered numerous items and zeroed in on many, including protocols for excessive use of force.
The levels go from 1 to 3, ranging from force used to restrain or disorient someone – such as handcuffs – to force used to injure, and then finally force that could seriously injure or kill.
Dettelbach says not all uses of force are equal, and warrant the creation a tracking system.
“Level One uses of force, which are the least serious….we no longer are requiring police supervisors to respond to the scene of every Level One use of force," began Dettelbach.
"Those are reviews that are going to be conducted largely based upon reports unless there’s some issue that comes up. While the most serious uses of force, we’ve decided that there needs to be special procedures put in place to have sometimes even expert teams look at those, depending on what the situation is.”
The consent decree unveiled last week capped five months’ discussion between the City, Justice Department officials, local clergy and community activists, and Cleveland residents. It maps out a path to reforming the Cleveland Division of Police.
The agreement – worked out between the U.S. Justice Department and City of Cleveland – outlines protocols and accountability measures intended to reform the local police force, particularly in use of excessive force and crisis intervention training.
It also calls for the hiring of an independent monitor to oversee how well Cleveland complies with the agreement.
First Assistant U-S Attorney Carole Rendon told the council that the City of Cleveland, its law department, and the U.S. Justice Department have outlined their preferred qualities for a monitor, that they’ll recommend to the U.S. District Judge overseeing the consent decree’s implementation.
“My presumption is that the City and the (Justice) Department will come up with a process by which we’ll interview people who are interested – our top candidates – people who are interested in serving as the monitor -- and that hopefully we’ll simply reach consensus," says Rendon.
"Maybe neither the city nor the department gets its first choice, but we both get our second choice.”
The Judge has to sign off on the consent decree for it to be carried out. That hearing’s scheduled for June 12 th.