After more than a decade, have Cleveland police earned a reprieve from federal court oversight? 

This question now rests with U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver. He oversees the city’s 2015 police consent decree, a deal between the city and U.S. Department of Justice to reform the department, particularly its use of force.

Last week, Cleveland and the Justice Department moved to bring the decree to an end, arguing the city has made substantial progress.

Oliver isn’t making his decision alone. He has asked for advice from the team he appointed to monitor the consent decree, which laid out a sweeping list of reforms the department is expected to achieve. The monitoring team, now led by longtime team member Christine Cole, has been putting Cleveland’s compliance to the test. 

Over the last few months, Cole’s team has released in-depth assessments of how closely Cleveland is following the decree. These assessments are the “light at the end of the tunnel for which all have been waiting,” the monitoring team wrote in a report last year. 

Consent decree monitor isn’t finished grading Cleveland’s progress

The monitoring team assessed Cleveland police in some of the key ways officers interact with the public: use of force, crisis intervention and searches and seizures. The team has also assessed staffing, training, equipment and recruitment. 

The city receives a score for each paragraph of the decree. 

In the assessments released over the last few months, Cleveland received the highest score possible — “substantial and effective compliance — in 31% of paragraphs. In another 49%, the city received the second-highest score, “general compliance.” In other provisions, the city still has work to do. 

Cole isn’t done with her assessments. She told the court this month that she plans six or seven more in the coming year. She’ll test the city’s police accountability, community problem solving, the Community Police Commission and policies, she said. She also plans to survey Cleveland residents on their views of police. 

“We’re ready to go ahead full steam on the march to compliance,” she told Oliver. 

Under the consent decree, the court maintains its jurisdiction over Cleveland police until the city has been in “substantial and effective compliance” for two years in a row. 

Read on for a look at what Cole’s team found in recent months. 

Monitor finds ‘notable behavior shifts’ among police — plus ‘persistent hurdles’ in complying with the decree 

Each year, the monitoring team writes two semiannual reports that offer a snapshot in time of Cleveland’s progress. The latest was released last September. Another report is almost done. 

The September report highlighted signs of progress. Supervisors are improving in the jobs of responding on the scene, especially after officers use force, for instance. The city has finally hired a police inspector general. The report credited Chief Dorothy Todd for making disciplinary decisions that were “consistent and aligned” with police policy. 

“The Monitoring Team is encouraged by notable behavioral shifts among police officers and supervisors, as well as the continued commitment to constitutional policing exhibited by Chief Todd and her leadership team,” the team wrote. “However, persistent hurdles to compliance remain at various administrative levels.”

Supervisors’ reports aren’t thorough enough, the monitors wrote. Although the inspector general is in place, the office needs policies and guidance on how to conduct audits and investigations. 

The monitoring team is awaiting a report from Cleveland on how the city is keeping its policing free of racial and other biases. Cleveland also hadn’t met the consent decree’s requirements for conducting performance evaluations and promotional reviews for officers, the report said. 

Read the full September 2025 semiannual report here.

Most non-lethal force is ‘proportional,’ but the city has administrative details to improve

By and large, Cleveland police are using non-lethal force appropriately, the monitoring team found in an assessment released this February. The monitors reviewed 272 instances of force in 2023 and 2024 — actions such as joint manipulation and the use of Tasers.

In 97% of those cases, the force was “necessary, proportional, and objectively reasonable,” the monitors wrote. In the six cases that were out of line, police supervisors referred the officers for retraining or discipline. 

“When it comes to interacting with the public, the reviewers found that officers are generally following policies, supervisors are engaged, and when policy violations occur, there is internal identification of those issues, and the systems designed to address those violations are in place and working,” the monitoring team wrote. 

Read the full February 2026 use-of-force assessment here.

The assessment also reviewed 47 high-level uses of force, which include gunshots, dog bites, more than three Taser charges and any force that lands a subject in the hospital. In one case, an officer fired at a moving vehicle — a violation of the consent decree. “Discipline was appropriately ordered,” the monitoring team noted. 

Cleveland received “substantial and effective compliance” scores for its use-of-force policies. There were other signs of compliance. For instance, the city has set up its Force Investigation Team and Force Review Board, which examine uses of force after the fact. Criminal use-of-force investigations are being referred to the Cuyahoga County sheriff. 

Now the city has to get the details right. The monitoring team couldn’t determine if all members of the Force Investigation Team were attending required trainings, for example. Cleveland also needs to keep better records on pepper spray and taser deployments. 

Cleveland needs to show that supervisors are retrained or disciplined if they inadequately review uses of force, the monitoring team wrote. The team also noted that the police chief took that issue seriously. 

At a few points in the assessment, the monitoring team cautioned that it’s too early to let up on the gas. 

“There have been changes, and this success demonstrates a year of good work,” the assessment read. “As police experts, the Monitoring Team recognizes that one year of compliance is not sufficient to demonstrate the behaviors are ‘meaningfully adhered to…across time, cases, and/or incidents’ and not regressing.”

Monitor: Despite ‘considerable progress’ in searches and seizures, the ‘journey is incomplete’

Cleveland received no “substantial and effective compliance” scores for its searches and seizures in a December 2025 monitor’s assessment. One provision was in “general compliance” and 9 were in “operational compliance.”

Nevertheless, the monitoring team concluded the city had made “considerable progress” in its searches. In 2024, officers sufficiently explained their reasonable suspicion for about 95% of searches, and there was probable cause for almost 91% of arrests.

The assessment flagged racial disparities in the stop and arrest data. Black residents made up almost 63% of traffic stops, 67% of investigatory stops and about 72% of stops resulting in arrests, despite African Americans making up about 48% of the city population. 

But racial disparities alone don’t necessarily mean the officers acted with discriminatory intent, the monitoring team wrote. The assessment recommended “further scrutiny” of the data. 

Read the full December 2025 search and seizure assessment here.

Last year, City Hall tapped the data analysis firm Sigma Squared to review stops and searches. The company found that the racial disparities were not statistically significant when considering other factors such as the circumstances of the interaction, the location and the reason for the stop. A full report is coming this year, the city said in a news release. 

The monitors laid out several main areas for improvement. Officers should improve their written justifications for stops and more clearly obtain consent for searches. The city should better review arrest records and better track stop data. 

“This report makes clear that while the Division has come some distance from where it was in 2015, the journey is incomplete,” the monitoring team wrote.

High marks for Cleveland’s crisis intervention

Cleveland has achieved substantial or general compliance — the top two grades — in all of the consent decrees requirements for intervening in mental health crises. The monitoring team wrote that it “strongly approves” of the direction Cleveland police have taken in crisis intervention. 

“Officers consistently demonstrate appropriate de-escalation techniques, calm demeanor, and professional conduct when responding to individuals in crisis,” the monitoring team wrote. 

Read the full September 2025 crisis intervention assessment here.

The assessment examined random samples of crisis intervention data from 2023. Police used force in 0.3% to 0.4% of crises and made arrests in only 1.5% to 2.1% of cases. More than 85% of the time, officers took people in crisis to the hospital. 

There were some outliers. In four incidents, officers were “initially aggressive,” ginning up tensions. In 5% of cases, the incidents escalated beyond the officers’ control. 

Those incidents that spun out of the hands of specialized crisis intervention officers “involved highly erratic individuals and many officers…which may create confusion as to which officer should assume control,” the monitoring team wrote. 

Progress in staffing, recruitment, training and equipment 

Cleveland received marks of substantial or general compliance in 77% of the consent decree provisions on officer staffing, recruitment, equipment and training. 

On recruitment and hiring, Cleveland police have “met or exceeded” the consent decree’s requirements, the monitoring team wrote. Police have also “substantially complied” with the decree’s training requirements. 

Still, some things could be improved. The monitoring team gave the city lower marks for not seeking more input from the Community Police Commission on resources and technology. 

Another area for improvement: police vehicles, known in Cleveland as zone cars. The city’s fleet of zone cars was generally in good shape with a 93% in-service rate. But more than a quarter of the fleet was around a decade old. The monitors recommended more preventative maintenance. 

Additionally, police didn’t always review the personnel files from candidates’ previous jobs. The city’s statement of hiring standards dated back to 2009, and the manual for field training officers hasn’t been updated since 2014.