Policing plan would require officers to chat with residents

CLEVELAND — A proposed plan for Cleveland police explicitly states something the department touted as an unmet goal: officers will have to get out of their cars and talk with people in the communities they patrol.

The community and problem oriented policing plan, which was rolled out Tuesday for public comment, is designed to transform how most officers interact with the public. While its tenets are not mentioned in every general police order the department issues, they would nevertheless bleed into everything from deployment to recruiting.

Instead of running from call to call, patrol officers would be required to interact with the public in a positive way, with the goal of improving a historically fraught relationship between police and the people they’re sworn to serve. The city would track the efforts of officers through its computer-aided dispatch system, the plan says.

The brunt of that work would fall on the patrol divisions, which make up the majority percent of the police department’s manpower. The plan requires patrol officers, on average, to spend 20 percent of their shifts on community engagement efforts.

However, talking to residents and solving problems would be required of every officer.

Community policing is one of several areas the city agreed to address as part of its 2015 reform agreement with the Justice Department. The city drafted and enacted new policies as a result of the agreement, known as a consent decree, to regulate how officers use force and deal with the mentally ill.

This plan, however, may have the biggest impact, said Greg White, a former federal magistrate judge and the city’s consent decree coordinator. Advocates say that trust can lead the public to become more open with officers, thus helping to make the city safer.

“This is probably the core plan of them all in terms of where we need to get to be for the consent decree,” White said Friday during a conference call with cleveland. com reporters. He added that parts of community policing made their way into proposed staffing and recruiting plans the city also released Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, whose office is one group making sure the city adheres to the consent decree, praised Cleveland’s work on all three policies. He said the police brass has truly embraced the plan.

Concrete ideas

The problem with the term “community policing” is that it can be nebulous, meaning different things to different people and different communities.

Cleveland police Capt. Johnny Johnson acknowledged this during the conference call Friday. He said he looked at programs in Seattle, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities, but none fit for Cleveland, he said.

“I didn’t find one that I thought was extensive as we put together,” Johnson said.

The 28-page plan is aimed at making residents more comfortable with approaching an officer with problems.

“Officers must be more approachable than what a zone car can offer,” the report states.

The plan lays out specific actions patrol officers would be required take while on their shifts, including:

■ Walking or biking through neighborhoods. Police have limited bike and foot patrol programs in various areas of the city, but all five police districts will have programs by the end of 2019.

■ Participating in neighborhood walks in which district commanders and officers would walk the neighborhood with a community relations representative and, sometimes, a city council member.

■ Attending formal and informal community meetings and giving presentations if asked.

■ Visiting businesses.

■ Asking more questions during service calls than what is required to complete a report.

■ Try to have a little fun with the public, including chatting and maybe playing a quick ball game.

Officers would also have to take steps to try to fix problems brought by residents, be they criminal or otherwise, and sometimes create a work plan to ameliorate complaints.

They would be required to note their community policing efforts in the department’s computer-aided dispatch program. Supervisors would track their efforts, both to make sure the officers follow departmental policy and so the department can find solutions to some problems.

Herdman singled out the requirement to document problem-solving efforts in the department’s dispatch system as “groundbreaking and innovative.”

Johnson said he believes many officers already engage in community policing. Hitting that 20-percent goal should not be an issue, he said.

If an officer does not meet his or her goal, a supervisor will set up an improvement plan. However, the officer will not be disciplined for a lack of community policing, police Capt. Joellen O’Neill said.

Sharing the work

The community policing plan has been in the works for a couple of years. The city has submitted drafts that the court-appointed team monitoring the city’s progress under the consent decree has deemed inadequate.

While the city has touted the creation of a specialized unit to reach out to the community and has focused on bike patrols in the wake of their success at the 2016 Republican National Convention, the monitor said the city could not rely on “balkanized” units that foist responsibility off the backs of patrol officers.

The plan acknowledges this, noting that that the public has asked for opportunities to talk to patrol officers, instead of just a few officers in small units.

It says the Bureau of Community Policing has traditionally taken the lead for community engagement activities. While that bureau — which will be renamed the Bureau of Community Relations — will still undertake community efforts, the onus would shift to all officers.

“All officers are responsible for engaging in community and problem-oriented policing without regard to where they are assigned. It is not the sole responsibility of any single bureau or unit,” the plan says.

Fostering a better relationship with the community is critical to not only improving relations with residents, but also solving crimes, according to a report commissioned by the city to study the city’s homicide unit. The report, compiled by the Police Executive Research Forum, also encourages steps to improve outreach programs as a way to boost the city’s homicide clearance rate.

Not enough time?

All of these efforts hinge on the idea that officers will have enough free time to carry them out.

Herdman acknowledged that officers in certain districts can be busy and that he has no doubt the city will adjust the plan as it is implemented.

The plan names a few ways they hope will alleviate the need for patrol officers to not have to run from call to call. This includes modifying the way districts deploy officers, hiring more officers and buying better equipment.

To free up time, the report also says the department would better publicize an online system it has for residents to report smaller crimes such as property damage and petty theft. It would also work to reduce the number of false alarms in which officers have to respond.

All three plans will be the subject of multiple avenues of feedback, including a survey, and could substantially change in the coming months.

The city, monitoring team and Justice Department will create the final plans, and ask a judge for approval. Upon approval, new policies and training would follow.

Community Police Commission Co-Chair Dick Knoth was critical of the reports, saying “candidly, there’s a lot of work to be done.”