by Nick Castele
The consultants monitoring Cleveland’s police reform agreement will ask a federal judge today to approve their plan for the first year of the consent decree.
The plan calls for Cleveland police to rewrite their mission statement and develop new use-of-force policies in the next few months. Police must revisit their recruitment and training programs. And the city must hire a civilian head for the division of internal affairs.
Lead monitor Matthew Barge briefed Judge Solomon Oliver on the plan on Thursday. Barge submits a final draft for the court’s review today.
“And after that, the deadlines in the plan will become court-enforceable,” Barge told reporters on Thursday. “So if people are missing their obligations, the judge will have the authority and responsibility to enforce those through all the powers of a federal judge.”
Meanwhile, Max Rodas, a member of Cleveland’s community police commission, has resigned, citing the body’s large workload, according to commission co-chair Rhonda Y. Williams.
And the local NAACP chapter has called for the resignation of another member, police union head Steve Loomis, over his defense of officers fired for the 2012 chase and shooting. Loomis has told Cleveland Scene and WEWS that he doesn’t plan to step down. The 13-member commission was created as part of the Consent Decree and sworn in last September.
