Tag: Cleveland Consent Decree
Community meeting on consent decree to focus on CDP search and seizure practices
By Rich Weiss, Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland
The Cleveland Consent Decree mandates that the City of Cleveland Division of Police conduct all investigatory stops, searches, and arrests fairly and respectfully as part of an effective overall crime prevention strategy that considers community values.
How well they are discharging that mandate is the subject of the next community conversation in the series of discussions jointly sponsored by United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland NAACP.
The next meeting in the series is this Wednesday, August 11 at 6:00 p. The theme will be Search and Seizure. The public is invited and encouraged to attend these sessions to help in the monitoring process.
To attend, ask questions or voice your concerns, register for any of the four remaining Consent Decree public meetings by visiting unitedwaycleveland.org.
The meetings are conducted via Zoom on the second Wednesday of each month. The July meeting focused on “Bias-Free Policing and Racial Profiling,” Among the topics raised last month:
- “What does ‘trained, bias-free policing policies’ mean practically, and what does that training look like?
- How do we justify over-policing in communities of color and lower-income communities?
- How are we measuring success with these initiatives?
Richard T. Andrews contributed to this report.
Family members who lost loved ones to police action speak at community meeting on Consent Decree
NEXT CLEVELAND CONSENT DECREE COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS 6:00 PM JULY 14 & AUGUST 11
By Rich Weiss, for Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland
The Neighborhood and Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland is providing monthly reports on a series of community conversations about the 2015 Consent Decree negotiated between the US Department of Justice and the City of Cleveland regarding the policies and practices of the Cleveland Police Department.
Four local community members who lost loved ones to Cleveland Police Department (CPD) use-of-force were the Zoom panelists for the June public input meeting on the Cleveland Consent Decree. United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland Branch of the NAACP co-sponsored this and five previous public conversations on the Consent Decree and its ramifications for our Cleveland communities.
Background: The Cleveland Consent Decree is a court-enforceable agreement that resulted from an investigation into the CPD by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (DOJ). The DOJ is the agency of the federal government that has the authority to investigate and prosecute alleged violations of citizens’ constitutional rights by the CPD.
After a 21-month investigation, the DOJ found the CPD had engaged in a pattern of excessive force. The Cleveland Consent Decree was agreed upon by the City of Cleveland and the DOJ to “…repair community trust and protect the constitutional rights of the people of the City of Cleveland.” The Consent Decree was signed into effect by Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr. and the DOJ on June 12, 2015. The agreement mandates “…the City will file a status report every six months thereafter while this agreement is in effect.”
The agreement also calls on “the community” of Cleveland to be a part of the reform process by serving on various Consent Decree committees and/or by attending local community meetings such as this to share concerns and real-life experiences from the community, and for the community to make recommendations for policy change.
Alicia Kirkman was asked to be a panelist at the June public meeting on the Cleveland Consent Decree because her son, Angelo Miller, died in 2007 in an incident involving CPD use-of-force.
Kirkman told the Zoom attendees, “Angelo was my everything. Angelo was 17 years old, and I was still dropping Angelo off at high school and Angelo would still give me a kiss like he was still my 5 year old. Still that loving, funny Angelo, he brought joy to all of us, to my whole family. And he had two sons—Angelo was a father and his two sons didn’t get a chance to know their father. I continue to fight for justice. I want murder charges against the officer that killed Angelo. We need charges. The whole thing—when it comes to settlements and the families being paid—we need cops to be charged with murder. If we get more charged with murder, they’ll stop killing. They’ll stop killing.”
Continue readingCommunity members needed to join sixth Cleveland Consent Decree Community Conversation sponsored by NAACP- Cleveland Chapter and United Way of Greater Cleveland: 6:00 pm, June 09
By Rich Weiss, for Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland
If you missed your chance to attend the May 12th public input meeting on the Cleveland Police Consent Decree, your input is still needed for the upcoming Consent Decree Community Conversation at 6:00 pm on June 9 (on Zoom). This public meeting (co-sponsored by the local chapters of the United Way and NAACP) seeks your opinions and questions on progress of the Cleveland Division of Police in the areas of Families and Communities Building Resilience.
Rosie Palfy, who is a a community advocate, a homeless advocate, a veterans advocate, and a member of the city of Cleveland Mental Health Response Advisory Committee since it was created in 2015, said, “I think that the event was really well received…and I’ve got nothing but positive feedback from the community. Strangers have reached out to me on social media, and it’s a small world out there. So somebody knows somebody, who knows me and they send me an email, and so I’m really glad I participated in it and I actually felt empowered afterwards. I was very pleasantly surprised at how it went.”
Continue readingCommunity members needed to join fifth Cleveland Consent Decree Community Conversation sponsored by NAACP- Cleveland Chapter and United Way of Greater Cleveland: 6:00 pm, May 12
By Rich Weiss, for Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland
If you missed your chance to attend the April 15th public input meeting on the Cleveland Police Consent Decree, your input is still needed for the upcoming Consent Decree Community Conversation at 6:00 pm on May 12 (on Zoom). This public meeting (co-sponsored by the local chapters of the United Way and NAACP) seeks your opinions and questions on progress of the Cleveland Division of Police in the areas of Crisis Intervention and Officer Wellness.
According to Roger Smith, Administrator of Cleveland’s Office of Professional Standards, “It’s really what the grassroots wants that should be driving this train. It’s important for public figures and people who work in public agencies to understand with clarity what it is the community wants, here—what role they want the police to play in their communities and what kind of rules do they want to govern those interactions. The only way to find that out is to get it from the community.”
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