Safety Committee

“Despite being recognized as a problem back in the 1800’s, we’re still struggling with this over 100 years later.”

Polensek then asked for an overall update on crime and police staffing issues form Chief Drummond and Chief Safety officer Karrie Howard.

Cleveland is budgeted for 1,640 officers. Right now we have 1,383 officers. Recently we had 39 resignations, 43 retirements, 7 were fired and 3 transferred.

Polensek- the number of missing officers constitutes an entire district house. Why are there so many resignations?

Chief Safety Officer Howard replies:
the relationship between police and community is strained. Unrealistic expectations, hostility towards officers… the tone and tenor towards policing makes it less attraction to potential applicants.

But because of the Consent Decree, we have one of the most forward leaning polices divisions in OH- and the country. We also have a top tier academy.

But it takes 9 months to go through the academy. Even if we hire now, it’ll be a year before those officers are on the streets.

Council member Jones says:

How we do patrol car planning is critical. People are shooting up homes in my community. If this was happening in Ward 17, or Shaker, it would be a state of emergency. But it’s happening right now in my community.

Council member Starr:

If salaries for police officers start around 54K, the money that was budgeted but not spent on officer salaries- why don’t we put that into programming, mentors, and activities?

Council Member Howse: The affect of Covid on worker- all workers- has been profound- we should take a look at a new study coming out: Where are the workers?

People are quitting their jobs without having another source of employment… we need to look at why.

Howard responds:
I agree. What we’re seen Covid do is create a huge number of entrepreneurs or kids trying to become entrepreneurs- attempting to make a significant amount of funds on Tik Tok for example.

Howard continues: We have got to re-imagine and think outside the box of what we have for our young people to do- Idle Hands are the devils playground.

Polensek returns to addressing Chief Drummond: when a juvenile is arrested- what’s the process? You do not detain the individual, is that correct?

Drummond- it depends on the crime. If a felony has been committed, the juvenile detention center is contacted and they decide whether to accept the individual. In a murder or felony weapons crime they would. We transport them to the detention center, drop them off and leave.

But on a misdemeanor crime, we’re generally taking them home.

Polensek: Is the problem (of juvenile crime) growing?
Drummond: I wouldn’t say it’s growing, it’s in flux.

Polensek turns to Michael C. O’Malley, the county prosecutor, asking his opinion on the matter.

O’Malley: unfortunately we’re seeing a lot of juveniles commit homicides, and lot of juveniles running around with guns.

For weapons offenses, the trend is going up. same with firearms in motor vehicles. In the last couple of years, the amount of car jackings has exploded. (It was unclear to me if these were overall statistics, or only for juvenile offenses)

“Our goal is always diversion.” We know that putting a misdemeanor juvenile offender in with felony juvenile offenders is counter productive. But we do have to balance public safety with this approach. There is a threshold. If you’re shooting at people, you will be detained.

Polensek turns to Judge O’Malley
What about the public concern that there is a revolving door? Juveniles who offend and then end up back on the streets only re-offend 7, 8 times.

We have 139 youth in our detention center currently. 19 for homicides, 89 with felony 1’s or 2’s. The way we deal with juveniles varies. We do our best. Some get home detention. But no one in the detention center is doing time. they’re there waiting for their court date.

The trouble with staffing for probation officer, detention officer, etc. is ongoing - we recently made offers to 18 people. Of those 18, half didn’t pass the background check, some didn’t show up to their drug screen, some just didn’t show up. We were left with 4 people to hire.

Brief interruption- alright folks, there’s a lot of important stuff here, and a lot of people at the table… so this feed may be coming to you slower than I’d hoped. I need to slow the stream down to catch quotes, names and stats. I’m about 1.5hr behind the feed at present.

Ok folks, I’m back. I’m going to tweet as much as I can before work and I’ll finish up after. This was a very long, factual dense meeting and one of the more interesting ones I’ve covered. It’s definitely worth a watch if you have the time!

And for those of you in a hurry- remember, YouTube allows you to speed up the stream 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x speed. For the sake of time, I will include as many links to some on the issues covered in this thread at the very END of the feed.

Tom O-Malley, administrative judge at Cuyahoga Court, continues:

“I understand the publics concern that we have a revolving door, but we don’t.”

Polensek: We know kids make mistakes, what is the internal mechanism to discover what’s going with these kids? If they’re being feed? If they have problems in school or at home?

“I have to believe some of these kids can be saved.”

Judge O’Malley answered this question by explaining the programing available for youth who may be suffering from various issues.

(All of the juvenile programming is listed in the Court’s annual report. I’ll have the link to that at the end of this thread.)

“If we’re not going to detain you any longer we have to come up with some program”, O’Malley says.

The ReEntry Court Docket, Safe Harbor Docket and Promise Team are given as examples of programming for juvenile offenders.

I didn’t think the programming really answered Polensek’s question though, which wasn’t what we’re doing for kids, but more…what the nature of the discovery process is and how we keep track of those kinds of issues.

Polensek: Any testing for lead? I’m finding out that we have elevated lead levels in our youth and it’s affecting their learning, and their behavior.

The judge wasn’t sure sure but didn’t think so.

The conversation goes back to staffing, which the police department, prosecutors office and County Court have all stressed as one of, if not THE, #1 obstacle in addressing the issue of juvenile crime.

The prosecutor- (on police officer shortage) Why start in Cleveland at 54k when you can go to a suburb and start at 68K?

There are penalties for starting in Cleveland and then transferring to the suburbs, but the suburbs pay so much more that the penalties don’t even come out of the officers pockets.

Prosecutor Mike O’Malley continues “There’s nothing worst then taking 9 months to train somebody and then have them leave 6 months into the job.”

Polensek responds: The news from the Mayors office is that Mayor Bibb is in negotiations with the police unions. They’re looking at base pay. As Council, we can’t negotiate that kind of thing. We’re on standby.

Now the Prosecutor is preparing to show video. He explain:

Over 100 dirt bikes stolen were stolen last year. They lure the innocent and naïve to the city of Cleveland, ask to test drive the bike, and ride off with it. https://t.co/yEdaqs4bx3

Now we’ve got people stealing challengers and chargers equipped with heavy duty engines, 700 horsepower …where they are just overtaking intersections and causing chaos from one end of the city to the other. https://t.co/KHZ7EygaAZ

Prosecutor O’Malley say: “On Sunday, I was walking along the towpath and I was overtaken by 3 dirt bikes and an ATV doing wheelies. “

He continues: “It sets a tone of lawlessness that leads to more serious crimes…”

Out of fear it might start auto-playing on an unsuspecting person and ruin their Friday morning… I’ve linked to the footage of juvenile violence rather than upload here.

Trigger Warning Minors engaging in violence, guns
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dlFzij7110lbw3ORKXqZLB7FEkk9NtbK/view?usp=sharing

Polensek asks: the gunplay- not the the car jackings- but the gun violence, is gang related? Is it drugs? Is it payback? What’s the common denominator?

Prosecutor O’Malley- “It’s a little bit of everything.”
“Every day is a new adventure in (juvenile) crime”.

Prosecutor O’Malley continues:
“The common denominator, really, is that a lot of this (chaos/violence/crime) is caused by GROUPS of kids.

kids in groups of 4, 5, or more…causing a lot of damage in a short amount of time.

Polensek remarks that the demographic growing the fastest in gun ownership is African American women, who feel they need a gun for personal safety,

“This is very troubling,” he says

Prosecutor O’Malley agrees and mentions the recent car jackings in Little Italy. 4 female case students were carjacked by a groups of juveniles, one as young as 14.
One of the victims was shot twice (survived).

“The community was shaken to it’s core… women didn’t feel safe.”

Prosecutor O’Malley marks two “turning points” that “swung the pendulum the other way” (meaning- less aggressive policing/police presence) the 2002 CPD layoffs, and the deadly 2016 police chase (that killed two unarmed black people).

The Prosecutor continues- Now the CPD is gun shy about chasing stolen vehicles…there are instances where carjackers driving stolen cars are identified but the police are told not to pursue. The perpetrators escape and go on to cause much more chaos and violence.

He gives an example of this: one of the clips shown was of a man being brutally beaten by a group of teens. Those responsible evaded capture because the CPD was told not to chase the stolen car they had been driving the day before.

Joe Jones: “I’ve been sitting here at this table, telling you for YEARS about the violence my community is experiencing. And I told you- sooner or later it’s going to come to your neighborhoods.”

Just having a police presence, Councilman Jones says, “cars on the streets”, would solve a lot of this. “If kids see cop cars patrolling on a regular basis, they’re not going to do these things”.

A judge from Cleveland Municipal Court sits in. Polensek asks for the public watching at home “Does municipal court play any part in juvenile cases?”

“No”, says the judge.

Judge O’Malley Ken Starr addresses the O’Malleys (Judge and Prosecutor) with a hypothetical case.

He asks: “The first time a juvenile gets caught with a gun, where is Peacemaker Alliance at? Case managers and probation officers? What does our second chance program look like?”

“These kids are crying out for help in a negative way.”
Council member Ken Starr continues.

“when are we going to allow Community Relations and Peacemaker Alliance (@ForClevePeace) to do their job by giving them the funding and the staff they need?”

Council member Howse addresses the O’Malleys (Judge and Prosecutor). I am so troubled by how we are having this conversation. Regarding the carjacking in Little Italy- Do you have the analysis of what happened to those young people who committed those car jacking?

Prosecutor O’Malley: “yeah, We would have the priors of that individual.”

Howse: “That’s not my question.
I’m asking what happened in that 14-yr old’s life-“

“-the victims-?”

“no, the perpetrators.”

“In fairness, I’m the prosecutor not a social worker. Just so we’re clear” https://t.co/4fv71l9d0F

Howse to Judge O’Malley:

H: “Does the court do an analysis?”

O: “Are you asking me do we evaluate the victim?”

H: “No, do you evaluate the perpetrator.”

O: “I don’t understand your question.”

H: “Okay. you’re not understanding the question.”

Howse explains how these questions were intended to lead to the point she’s getting at.

Prosecutor O’Malley responds sharply:

“Ms. Howse, talk to me professionally. Talk to me professionally.”

Me: ???😲😦 https://t.co/kxWFGzgfCX

For one thing, It’s Councilmember Howse, not Ms. Howse, and while I could hear her frustration at being repeatedly misunderstood, she was speaking passionately, not disrespectfully.

The prosecutors response made me feel uncomfortable.

Folks start interrupting, talking over each other. I can hear the gavel.

@stephaniehowse tries (and succeeds) to maintain control of the conversation, saying what I considered to be the highlight of the meeting:

“WE have failed THEM. Our Babies are a reflection of US.”

Polensek jumps in, in an attempt to de-escalate the tension. He addresses Judge O’Malley directly, who has been a little confused so far, but has seemed calm and respectful. Polensek seems to give Judge O’Malley the clarity he needs to correctly answer Howse’s questions.

The judge says that yes, a lot of information is gathered about the minors entering the juvenile justice system, but access to a minors background, health info, etc. is protected.

The prosecutor speaks again. 😓 It’s not difficult to interpret that his comments, which felt passively aggressive, were aimed at Howse.

Howse does not respond to him, addressing further questions about the analysis of young offenders to Judge O’Malley https://t.co/oh41qG769J

She explains she wants to use information as a method of preventing crime, not a form of analysis after the fact. She addresses Prosecutor O’Malley:

Do we take into account that continual brain development happens well into a child’s mid-20’s?

It turned ugly. The prosecutor brought up Howse’ family history with the court. My jaw dropped in disbelief. It was hard to watch. I had to pause and go cuddle Fats and Simone🐰🐰 https://t.co/mt544v68jd

It was chaotic for a while, folks talking over each other… eventually Polensek regained control and Mooney was given the microphone.

Mooney talks about some of the solutions other cities, like Columbus, are implementing to handle dirt bikes gangs. Drone-pursuit and seizure of the vehicles were mentioned. I feel like we’re discussing a scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. https://t.co/yu0dZumBop

My councilmember, Brian Kazy, speaks next. He briefly touched on professionalism, which I interpreted as a diplomatic reprimand of some of Prosecutor O’Malley’s earlier comments.

CPD’s chase policy is discussed. “It’s 18 pages long”, says Kazy, “and if they don’t follow that policy exactly, in the moment, while a crime is occurring, they get written up. You know it. We know it. The men in blue know. The criminals know it.”

Myesha Crowe, of @ForClevePeace , spoke about the need for community involvement “whenever I hear these discussions, community is always left out of the conversation. I don’t represent a system. I represent the residents.” https://t.co/GmzJsY0GDV

Councilmember Grey talks about the abuse of the 696- kids hotline ( a child neglect hotline) and profit gain. I honestly didn’t understand a lot of what she was saying. I think I must be missing some background info.

I think the meeting has maxed out on time, because about half of city council leaves. Polensek mentions he can’t legally keep them. @FredBarkley, who had been present recording the entire meeting on his cell phone, spoke as a community member.

Another gentleman from the community, a Ward 1 resident, also spoke. Race, poverty and folks that don’t have a voice. “If you’re here (at this table) you probably don’t have a problem.”

It’s a little disheartening that the majority of council didn’t stay to listen to public comment. Only Howse, and committee chair Polensek, remain at the table. Joe Jones has returned to the table.

The final minutes of the meeting are informal. Chief Drummond, Director Howard, and Myesha are still in the room as well. The meeting ended a little after 5:30.

Please, tweet me if I’ve misunderstood something. I did my best, but I’m not a professional journalist. And I’m human. 🙃

Have questions? Send any inquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters Or email us at documenters@neighborhoodgrants.org

P.S. Your bunnies for this evening: double dutches, digitally drawn by yours truly. Keep it fluffy, folks. 🐰✌️ https://t.co/cCnQYuZEZA

Apologies. It’s Councilmember Gray, not Grey.

Fun fact about me: I have confused myself for a Brit most of my life. I mistakenly thought grey was the more common spelling of the color. I blame Grey’s Anatomy for this misunderstanding.