Last fall, the Cleveland Community Police Commission approved a new policy for disciplining rank-and-file police officers and employees.
At the time, Commission Co-Chair John Adams hailed it as a “major deal,” in part because of the years of work that went into overhauling the policy, which governs what the Cleveland Division of Police formally calls “corrective action.”
Since voters handed the commission final authority over discipline five years ago, the commission has revised this same policy three times. But, for various reasons, none of those versions has been put to use. Police are still disciplined under rules adopted before the commission had a real say.
If passed, the latest version would be the commission’s most significant overhaul of the policy. It would reduce discretion in the disciplinary process, which the commission believes will improve fairness, and establish a new process called collaborative discipline, giving the commissioners a real-time role in the disciplinary process.
That is, if the process isn’t stymied by another challenge: a threat of legal action from at least one of the unions representing Cleveland officers.
An attempt at improving fairness
The new policy would mean less harsh penalties for minor violations and a stronger likelihood of termination for the most serious offenses.
That would be accomplished by rearranging categories that violations fall into, creating one for “non-disciplined violations,” which includes tardiness, uniform and equipment violations, and first offenses related to rudeness or improper use of a body camera. Non-disciplined violations can be addressed with coaching, letters of reinstruction, re-training and/or referrals to the Employee Assistance Unit. Currently, some of those violations require a hearing and discipline ranging from verbal correction to a five-day suspension.
The second new category is for “the most egregious and heinous misconduct,” including alcohol or drug use on duty, sharing confidential information, lying and retaliation. Officers found guilty of these will be fired. Some of these offenses currently carry penalties ranging from a 10-day suspension to termination.
These new categories were created in the version of the policy the commission approved in 2024. The intent was to improve fairness. Officers had told a consultant working with the commission on the policy that it gives police leadership too much discretion to increase or decrease the severity of charges and punishments “depending on relationships and other factors, including race,” Commissioner Piet van Lier, chair of the policy commission, told Signal Cleveland last year.
Like everything the commission passes, the discipline policy was sent to the U.S. Department of Justice lawyers and members of the monitoring team, who track the city’s progress toward police reform under the 2015 consent decree. Each time the commission has voted to approve changes — November 2024, November 2025 and February 2026 — it came back with notes. Some of those notes dealt with concerns expressed by the Cleveland Division of Police and advised the commissioners to work those out.
Turnover on the commission — and within the unit of the police department that handles policy, said Commissioner Shandra Moriera-Benito — contributed to delays in that process.
Command officers have attended several commission committee meetings this year to provide input. The committee members have adopted many of the division’s proposed changes, said van Lier.
A police spokesperson did not respond to Signal Cleveland’s request for comment on concerns about the policy.
Commission seeks a more active role in discipline decisions
The commission had been scheduled to vote on the policy Aug. 25 but postponed after Chief of Police Dorothy Todd asked for another week, in part to get feedback from the unions that represent Cleveland officers. That was the first time someone from the division had suggested holding up the process until the unions had weighed in, van Lier said.
[This story was updated after publication to clarify that the division only recently asked to delay the vote because the unions had not provided input.]
The commission’s and unions’ missions have collided before.
Late last year, the commissioners learned that the city’s Law Department had settled long-delayed disciplinary cases with three officers, effectively exempting them from commission review. The settlements were related to discipline deadlines set by the city’s collective bargaining agreements (contracts) with the Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, and the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents commanders.
The commission asked the city’s public safety inspector general to investigate the settlements, but it’s not clear whether that happened.
The newest version of the discipline policy establishes a process that some commission members hope could help to avoid such situations.
Currently, the Community Police Commission can only intervene in a discipline decision after the fact, through a process called an evidentiary hearing. The commission has held just one of those so far.
The new discipline policy introduces collaborative discipline, making the members of the commission’s accountability committee partners in the process with the chief of police in certain cases. In this system, the chief (or designee) would still conduct discipline hearings with officers accused of wrongdoing. But the chief would have to send a draft of their decision to the accountability committee before sending it to the officer.
The committee would either approve the chief’s decision or ask for reconsideration and explain why. If the chief declined to change their verdict or did not respond, the committee would send the case file to the full commission for a vote to either uphold the chief’s decision or schedule an evidentiary hearing.
The process is similar to that of the Civilian Police Review Board, which recommends discipline following residents’ complaints against officers, said Moriera-Benito, chair of the accountability committee.
A union threatens legal action over the proposed policy changes
A section of Cleveland’s city charter spells out the powers and duties of the Community Police Commission. It states that “where conflict exists,” that section “supersedes” other parts of the charter, city laws and collective bargaining agreements.
Tension between the commission’s powers and the contracts isn’t new. In 2021, the city’s then-law director warned in a legal brief that “the Cleveland Charter would not control Federal or State court jurisdiction and rules …”
The FOP contends that state law is clear: The commission’s power does not exceed the union’s contract.
“The [commission] is an arm of the City of Cleveland, and the City is bound by its collective bargaining agreement,” said Jim O’Malley, president of the local FOP, in a statement to Signal Cleveland. “That bargaining relationship is governed by state law.”
The city did not respond to Signal Cleveland’s question about its position on the FOP’s argument.
O’Malley also said he is “extremely disappointed with the lack of transparency and our lack of involvement” in the proposed changes.
According to Moriera-Benito, Commissioner James Chura invited the FOP to meet with him and Commissioner Sheila Mason in June to discuss the collaborative discipline part of the proposed policy changes. O’Malley told Signal Cleveland that he and his legal counsel viewed the meeting as “informal” and opted not to accept.
Van Lier said that he met with CPPA president Andrew Gasiewski in January and sent a draft of the policy in March but did not hear back. Gasiewski declined to comment for this story.
In an email to the commissioners and various city and police officials, an attorney for the FOP demanded “the opportunity to bargain over any proposed changes” to the disciplinary policy. “If unilateral changes are made … the FOP reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek judicial and/or agency relief.”
On Wednesday, the commission was trying to arrange a meeting with the city’s Law Department to get its take on the potential conflict with the contracts.
The commission’s policy and rules committees are scheduled to meet jointly on Monday to vote on the policy. If they approve, it will go next to the full commission, possibly also Monday night, but, at publication time, that meeting had not been scheduled.
