Cleveland should sign data initiative

Several years ago, Cuyahoga County launched an important crime-data project aimed at overcoming communications disconnects among the county’s dozens of municipal police departments.

The project was groundbreaking: The inability of local police departments to share information quickly, or to all have access to license-plate photos from crime scenes and pursuits, was impeding crimesolving and preventing easy dissemination of important data.

Nor was it easy to do – which is why a similar 2011 effort failed.

Aligning systems in 58 municipalities posed a significant technical challenge, in that different police departments stored crime-report data on different software, so quickly sharing this information in real time would not work without aligning those systems.

Yet the county persevered and solved those challenges, spending $2.2 million so far, more than half of that from a large federal grant.

Cuyahoga County continues to underwrite the Data Warehouse’s full operating cost, supported by a $5 fee on traffic violations paid by motorists, including Cleveland motorists.

The system formally began last year. Today, every single municipality in Cuyahoga County has either joined or committed to join the system. Except one.

Except the city of Cleveland. Cleveland is not averse to using the data others are sharing through the Data Warehouse system, according to a story by cleveland.com reporter Adam Ferrise; it just hasn’t been willing - so far - to join and share its own crime reports.

Why is unclear. Cleveland officials haven’t explained their opposition.

But this resistance is unacceptable and counterproductive to citizen safety.

It also runs directly counter to the transparency about its crime data that Cleveland promised as part of the 2015 Cleveland police consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice.

True, the Data Warehouse system shares crime data granularly, not just as summary data. But that is what makes it so effective.

Cleveland says it’s still weighing its options.

A February email from Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams, sent through a spokeswoman to Ferrise, said “The Division is currently evaluating all aspects of the program to ensure conditions of participation are understood and that this best fits the needs of the City of Cleveland and the Division of Police.”

A county spokeswoman said Friday that Cleveland had not yet indicated it planned to join the system.

That is wrong, and needs to change.

Cleveland is by far the biggest municipality in Cuyahoga County and scene of much of its crime.

For the Data Warehouse project to be effective, Cleveland needs to share its own data and not just help itself to the crime reports other municipalities are providing.

We can think of no good reasons for the city of Cleveland to resist doing so, apart from a possible desire to shield its crime data -- but that data is already being released, in aggregate, as part of Cleveland’s obligations under the consent decree.

End the foot-dragging, Cleveland.

Join the system.