There is an “alarming gap in accountability” related to Human Resources complaints filed by city employees against members of public safety forces, according to Cleveland’s Community Police Commission.
The commission, which has final authority over discipline for Cleveland police officers, released data Tuesday on 44 complaints alleging workplace violence, harassment, discrimination and retaliation dating back more than five years that are categorized as “open” by the city and apparently have never been resolved.
The data shows that in nearly 85% of those open cases the city employees who complained have not been interviewed.
Many complaints are marked as “pending review.”
“As discussions arise about ending the Cleveland Division of Police’s (CDP) Consent Decree, the Cleveland Community Police Commission (CPC) has identified alarming gaps in accountability related to serious internal complaints, including bias, harassment, workplace violence and retaliation,” the CPC said in a press release signed by co-chair John Adams.
The issue came to light in 2023, according to the release, when the interim consent decree monitor Ayesha Bell Hardaway wrote in a report submitted in federal district court that the city’s HR department failed to properly handle a number of internal complaints.
“Despite repeated inquiries by the Monitoring Team, the City has failed to appropriately handle at least three internal complaints making prima facie allegations of bias, harassment and/or retaliation; two complaints have been allowed to languish in the Human Resources Division for well over two years and one complaint appears to have been ignored by CPD command staff,” Hardaway wrote in the March 2023 report.
More recently, an Ideastream investigation showed allegations against a recently appointed police commander, Timothy Maffo-Judd, had apparently not been fully reviewed.
According to records the city provided to the CPC, that investigation into Maffo-Judd and several other officers from the department’s bomb squad remains “under investigation” two-and-a-half years after it was reported to HR.
The police department's policy is to send workplace violence and harassment cases to city's HR department for review, said city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair.
"As the entity that is responsible for police policy, the Community Police Commission (CPC) should understand these types of complaints are referred outside of the Division of Police to the City’s Department of Human Resources," said Sinclair.
The head of the Police Accountability Team, Leigh Anderson, also asked the city's new inspector general to investigate the delays in closing cases last month, said Sinclair.
"The CPC was apprised of the issue at that time, rendering today’s message as a mere amplification of something we are already working to address," said Sinclair. "We have identified procedures that can be better refined to ensure a more efficient process moving forward. The City takes all allegations very seriously."
The 44 total cases marked as “open” by the city date to Jan. 1, 2019. The most recent is from Feb. 3, 2025.
Only seven cases are marked as having moved past the stage of interviewing the complainant and respondent.
At least two of the complaints still under review were filed by Lt. Paul Baeppler, who took legal action against the city. In 2018, Baeppler filed suit accusing a high-ranking Cleveland police official and a fellow supervisor of lying to get him fired.
Baeppler filed two complaints with HR in 2021, which remain unresolved, the records released by the CPC show.
In 2023, the city settled a lawsuit filed by Baeppler for $2.5 million and promoted him to captain immediately before his retirement at that higher salary.
The CPC said it initially requested all officer complaints that launched the HR cases, any open cases and any closed cases.
The city released a total of six closed cases to the CPC but details of those cases were not included in Tuesday’s release, according to the CPC.
Sinclair criticized the commission for releasing any of the records it's already received, said Sinclair.
"Their actions do not follow a trauma-informed lens and are completely contradictory to best practices when it comes to handling extremely-sensitive matters," said Sinclair. "The individuals who filed these complaints felt like they were wronged and were brave enough to speak up. The weaponization of this information is not only wholly inappropriate, but may have a chilling effect on our workplace environment as it was a clear breach of trust."
