Cleveland agrees to reform police after damning DOJ report

Cleveland agreed to an overhaul of the city’s police department under the auspices of a federal monitor Tuesday, in a settlement with the Department of Justice over a pattern of excessive force and other abuses by officers.

The agreement, contained in a 105-page consent decree that requires the approval of a U.S. District Court judge, will provide a road map for city police to reform after a scathing report on its practices last year.

“It will define who we are as a people and who we are as a city,” Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson told a news conference.

The announcement comes just three days after a white patrolman in the city was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter charges in the shooting deaths of two unarmed black suspects. That case helped prompt the months-long investigation by the Justice Department into wider concerns at the city’s police force.

Releasing their findings in a scathing report in December, investigators found that the Cleveland police engaged in widespread use of excessive force against its citizens.

Tuesday’s settlement calls for new use-of-force guidelines, a fresh focus on community engagement, accountability reforms, training on bias-free policing and a mental health advisory committee.

Community members sent petitions and recommendations for police reforms to city leaders after the Justice Department's report. Requests included re-opening police mini-stations at community centers, establishing a citizen-police panel on crisis interventions and creating an online system to make police data and procedures available to the public.

The settlement includes some measures aimed at improving civilian oversight of the police. For example, Cleveland's mayor is now required to appoint a civilian Police Inspector General to head the department's Internal Affairs Unit.

“As we move forward, it is my strong belief that as other cities across this country address and look at their police issues in their communities, they will be able to say, ‘Let's look at Cleveland because Cleveland has done it right,’” Jackson said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference announcing the settlement, Jackson said the city had not yet determined the total cost for implementing all the necessary reforms.

The worst examples of excessive force in the Justice Department’s report involved patrol officers who endangered lives by shooting at suspects and cars, hit people over the head with guns and used stun guns on handcuffed suspects.

The agency said supervisors encouraged some of the bad behavior and often did little to investigate it. Some told the Justice Department that they often wrote their reports to make an officer look as good as possible, the federal agency said. The department found that only six officers had been suspended for improper use of force over a three-year period, despite a catalog of allegations.

The settlement comes at a tense time between communities and law enforcement nationwide. Protests have erupted after several high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of police, most recently in Baltimore.

Cleveland was the scene of a similar incident last year when police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, after the preteen was approached by police for brandishing what turned out to be a replica gun that fires plastic pellets.

Al Jazeera and wire services