The members of the Civilian Police Review Board are meeting once a month like they always have. There are eight right now, with one open spot.
At those monthly meetings, investigators from the Office of Professional Standards (OPS) present their investigations into civilian complaints against Cleveland police officers.
The Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) votes on whether the complaint should be sustained or dismissed and, if sustained, recommends discipline to the chief of police.
That’s how it worked before Issue 24 passed and that’s how it works now.
“They’ve got a lot to do,” said Kareem Henton, an organizer for Black Lives Matter Cleveland. “I think they’ve got a lot of reading to do because I don't think they're fully aware of the new rules that govern them.”
When voters passed Issue 24 in November, the discussion focused on the new police oversight powers put in the hands of the Community Police Commission (CPC). But the new Charter Section 115 also transformed another agency — the CPRB.
Included in the new rules now part of Charter Section 115 is a requirement that the chief of police follow the board’s recommendations. CPRB can also launch investigations of police misconduct on their own, issue subpoenas and call witnesses.
The OPS, which was a part of the Department of Public Safety, has moved under the CPRB. One of the board’s responsibilities is to make sure they’re fully staffed.
“They do not have all the investigators that they need," Henton said. "They do not have the general manager that would pretty much oversee the inner workings of OPS.”
According to CPRB Chairman Michael Hess, the focus right now is on adjudicating complaint cases and waiting for open positions at OPS to be filled.
“Since the personnel, employment situation at OPS has been kind of in flux, I think that’s something we’re waiting on to move forward with anything,” Hess said. “You can see in our meetings, there’s very little time to address outside stuff. Maybe some policy stuff as it relates to specific cases. But it’s pretty hard to have high level conversations.”
It’s not clear to Hess what role CPRB will have in hiring the new OPS administrator, who oversees all investigations. The administrator left late last year. The city just posted for that job last week.
There are other vacancies at OPS. The general manager position hasn’t been filled since 2020. It was taken out of the budget last year, but it is back in this year. The private secretary left two weeks ago.
The city says the board will select the administrator in conformity with civil service rules.
As for the rest of the authority Section 115 puts in the hands of CPRB, Hess and the board are waiting for a few things to happen. First, the city’s law department must write a new manual for board members laying out their new responsibilities and procedures, and the federal judge overseeing the consent decree has to approve it.
And according to Hess, the new system for police discipline that CPRB is part of depends on the appointment of the new Community Police Commission. And he thinks it could take a long time to find people who meet all the requirements in the charter.
“We could be surprised by that. But I think it's going to take a while," Hess said. "And I think there's a practical level of we've got to do to keep the ship upright here. We've got to keep things moving.”
Mayor Justin Bibb is currently reviewing applications and plans to pick commissioners in July. Section 115 allowed for some time before CPC took on its new powers, while the consent decree was updated. There is no provision like that for the CPRB.
Henton, from Black Lives Matter Cleveland, disagrees that CPRB members should be waiting for CPC commissioners to be in place and said some should step down from the board if they’re not going to start asserting their authority.
“Those positions need to be filled with people that have a connection to the community and an understanding of the community that they're supposed to be overseeing the rights of,” Henton said.
Currently there are no Black men on the CPRB. The chair and vice chair are both white men. The previous chair was a white man. Three of the eight members are Black women.
There’s a provision in Section 115 that allows community members to sue the board if it doesn’t use its new powers. Henton said activists have retained a lawyer and may take legal action after giving the board a little more time.
