Cleveland police have agreed to cut in half a backlog of citizen complaint cases by the end of the year. The monitor overseeing the city鈥檚 consent decree laid out a schedule of deadlines in a federal court filing last week.
The monitoring team in June in finishing years-old investigations of complaints against officers.
Now the Office of Professional Standards has a goal: complete all remaining 136 cases from 2014 and 2015 by the end of this year, reducing the backlog by about 50 percent. The office also aims to finish half of the cases filed this year.
The agreement also says investigators will make audio recordings of all interviews with officers, witnesses and those who file complaints.
鈥淲e agreed that we would file this with the court to give the judge some idea of what the process was going to look like, and we鈥檒l see going into the end of the year where we鈥檙e at,鈥� said Greg White, who manages consent decree compliance for the city. 鈥淗opefully we鈥檒l accomplish what鈥檚 in this document and more.鈥�
The city, the monitor and the Justice Department will receive progress reports every other week.
鈥淲hile the scope of progress that OPS must make to comply with the Consent Decree is more substantial than the milestones outlined here,鈥� monitor Matthew Barge wrote in the court filing, 鈥渢he milestones are intended to provide specific, measurable guideposts to assist OPS in meeting existing requirements.鈥�
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