Cleveland police backlogged on complaint cases amid reforms

CLEVELAND – The team monitoring Cleveland’s court-ordered police-reform agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice has presented a judge with a new plan to address a backlog of unfinished investigations into complaints against police.

Cleveland.com (http://bit.ly/2qLxOCC ) reports the city and the monitors had found about 380 open cases dating to 2014. But in a court filing this week, the monitors say they’ve found over 400 more cases in varying stages of completion.

City officials say they’re committed to reducing the backlog, and they submitted a plan in February. The monitoring team determined that plan didn’t adequately outline a timeline with specific steps to take, so they submitted a new plan this week for a judge to consider approving.

The DOJ and the head of Cleveland’s professional standards office helped draft the plan.

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Information from: cleveland.com, http://www.cleveland.com