cudell recreation center
The metal sign announcing the presence of a police mini station at Cudell Community Center serves only as a faded promise of a better relationship between cops and the community and a reminder of Cleveland's many iterations of community policing that have been tried and abandoned. City Councilwoman Dona Brady is trying to resurrect the mini-stations with a petition she delivered Thursday to Mayor Frank Jackson.
( Cory Shaffer, Northeast Ohio Media Group)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland City Councilwoman Dona Brady on Thursday delivered petitions signed by more than 1,500 residents to Mayor Frank Jackson and other city officials, demanding that the city embrace a community policing model by reopening long-shuttered police mini-stations in all 17 wards.
Brady and Rose Zitiello, executive director of Westown Community Development Corp., also submitted a written statement to U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach, suggesting that any agreement with the city to rectify problems within the police department include the return of mini-stations.
The statement argues that assigning officers to each ward helps them develop stronger relationships with the citizens they serve and would address many of the deficiencies that the U.S. Justice Department identified in its recently released report on police use of force in Cleveland.
"The mini-station officers were so familiar with their territory and the people residing in them that they knew who lived where, who the gang members were, where the guns were and the drugs were being sold and so on," the statement reads. "It was an intimate relationship with the community."
The mini-stations were established in the 1990s under then-Mayor Michael R. White's administration as a way to connect officers with residents and get a better read on crime in the neighborhoods. The city assigned officers to work out of special offices at recreation and other neighborhood centers.
But the mini stations closed in 2005 under then-Mayor Jane Campbell. The police chief at the time was Michael McGrath, the city's current safety director.
Brady has championed the reopening of the mini-stations ever since. Her petition drive began in the wake of the Nov. 22 fatal police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice outside of the Cudell Recreation Center -- once home to a mini-station.
Brady suggested in public statements that, had the station been staffed, officers might have recognized Tamir as a good kid who was playing with a toy gun, and he might be alive today.
In an interview Thursday, Brady said she does not think that staffing the mini-stations will cost the city much, if anything. She said it boils down to deploying officers to cover smaller geographic areas and giving them a home base, where residents can meet them to file reports.
Currently, about 90 officers are assigned to the community service unit, spread out among all five police districts. But Brady said they don't practice true community policing and are frequently pulled off their duties to do traffic control, work special events or help with higher priority calls.
She said residents don't have a personal relationship with those officers, who often cover an area that stretches across several council wards.
"It's about being proactive in neighborhood policing, knowing your people and being on a first name basis with the residents," Brady said. "There is nothing at all that can take the place of that kind of familiarity."