Cleveland Police disproportionately stop, search and arrest Black Clevelanders compared to other races, according to a new assessment from the monitor overseeing the police consent decree.
“Citywide, Black drivers are stopped by police at nearly twice (1.97 or 197%) the rate you would expect based on their share of the driving population—making up 62.7% of traffic stops but only 31.8% of drivers,” the monitor, Christine Cole, wrote, adding that white drivers make up 31% of stops and 59% of drivers. “Black drivers are more than 3.7 times as likely as White drivers to be stopped by Cleveland police.”
The assessment additionally found Black people were more likely to be searched and more likely to be arrested after a stop.
“While the assessment determined that considerable progress has been made in several key areas, this analysis reveals disparities, particularly along racial and gender lines, along with deficiencies in other areas that underscore the need for further analysis, sustained oversight, targeted training, and, as determined, corrective actions, and further structural reforms,” Cole wrote.
The monitoring team analyzed documentation from all stops in 2024 and closely scrutinized the reasoning for stops. Subsequent searches or arrests in 376 traffic stops and 255 investigatory stops were also reviewed.
Police are clearly reporting the reasoning behind stops and probable cause for arrests in the vast majority of cases, according to the report, though in 9% of arrests reviewed by the monitor, no “sufficient articulation” of probable cause was present.
“In an additional handful of incidents, the officers’ decision-making may have been influenced by the individual's ethnicity, race, or gender,” the monitor wrote. “These cases were concentrated among a small number of officers, suggesting these are isolated, officer-centered decision making or in response to a particular data point.”
The Cleveland Division of Police has been under a federal consent decree since 2015, following a Department of Justice investigation that found “a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force” throughout the division.
The first phase of the consent decree, which the department has largely completed, was focused on overhauling the department’s policies and training in use of force, crisis intervention, officer accountability, search and seizure and several other areas.
The monitor’s search and seizure assessment measures the department’s adherence to those reforms and is one of several areas the monitor plans to assess before the department is released from the consent decree.
The monitor has assessed and praised the department's crisis intervention reforms.
“We want a division of police that is trusted, professional, and aligned with the values and expectations of the people of Cleveland, and that includes constitutional policing,” said Dr. Leigh Anderson, the city’s head of consent decree compliance.
The monitor found that, in the vast majority of cases, stops and searches are constitutional, Anderson said, so that indicates other reasons for the racial disparities.
“What we have to do is look at other influences present in our community, other things as far as quality of life,” Anderson said. “We need to look at issues that relate to police officers and specific systemic biases that are present in the community. We also need to look at different policing strategies.”
The city hired a consultant, Sigma Squared, to analyze stop and search data and examine department records for bias.
During a press conference in October, Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer said there was no evidence of bias in 2024 stops. The city has not released his report.
The analysis was based on whether Black drivers were pulled over more frequently for lesser offenses and how often illegal contraband was found.
The monitor’s report goes into extensive detail on the racial and geographic breakdown of stops and found the most common reason for a traffic stop was speeding.
Traffic stops for non-moving violations like registration issues and window tint disproportionately affected Black drivers.
In 73% of the cases where excessive window tint was listed as the reason for the stop, the driver was Black. Black drivers were more likely to be searched across nearly all traffic violation types, according to the report.
Anderson said the city has already begun addressing the concerns raised by the monitor’s report.
“Now, we're having the opportunity to gather data to determine what those benchmarks are and to...analyze what's actually happening...move forward and really execute policies, training and implementation so that things are equitable and fair on the street with police,” Anderson said.
