U.S. District Judge Solomon Oilver said he hadn’t expected Cleveland and the U.S. Justice Department to move to end the police consent decree that he has overseen for more than a decade.
Oliver, who was not ready to rule on the request at a court hearing Friday, quoted the catchphrase of Andy Griffith Show character Gomer Pyle.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise,” he said, stirring laughter in the court. Later in the hearing, he said, “I didn’t have to have a heads up,” adding, “Would’ve been good.”
Oliver said he would give the motion “careful thought” and seek “additional input,” possibly including testimony from the framers of the 2015 consent decree. He said the city was “making substantial progress,” while pointing to provisions of the consent decree requiring two years of substantial compliance.
The city has not yet completed all of the decree’s requirements. During the hearing, monitor Christine Cole said the city had made progress, but that more evaluations were planned. The judge said he would also seek more advice from Cole as he weighs his decision.
“I want to give it a fair hearing,” Oliver said. “It is new. It was a surprise.”
Cleveland police make ‘demonstrable change,’ but consent decree has unfinished business
Attorneys for the city and the Justice Department said little until the end of the hearing. Oliver spent much of the time offering an overview of the case and hearing an update from Cole.
A longtime member of the monitoring team who became head monitor last year, Cole said she had seen “enormous growth” from the city but that areas of concern remained. Those included putting additional resources in place and writing policies that were either insufficient or non-existent, she said.
Key to the monitoring team’s upcoming work is assessing Cleveland’s progress. The team has reviewed the city’s work reforming such areas as crisis response, use-of-force practices, searches and seizures and training, Cole said.
“The work of the men and women in the police department really shows demonstrable change,” she said.
But the monitor still must assess the police accountability, community problem solving, the Community Police Commission and certain policies, she said. Cole expected to perform six or seven more assessments throughout the year. She also planned to survey residents about police — the first such survey taken since 2018.
“We’re ready to go ahead full steam on the march to compliance,” Cole said.
Toward the end of the hearing, Justice Department attorney Jonas Geissler distanced the government from the perception that the motion to end the consent decree was tied to the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration, which ordered a review of such police agreements.
The decision to request an end to the consent decree was “based upon the facts” of the case, he said.
“Whoever was in charge, now is the point where it’s time,” Geissler said.
Asked afterward about Oliver’s surprise at the city’s move, Cleveland Chief Ethics Officer Delanté Thomas said it was “not uncommon” for parties to submit motions unannounced in advance.
For his part, Thomas said he was not surprised that Oliver didn’t issue a ruling.
“We’ve always appreciated how thoughtful the judge is in wanting to take his time,” Thomas told reporters. “We weren’t expecting an immediate response.”
Cleveland and the Justice Department argued in their joint motion that the city had achieved “substantial compliance” with the consent decree. Thomas said the city was not arguing that it was “not just job well done” but that reform would continue under local control.
“It’s not for us to stop reform,” he said. “It’s not for us to stop the work. We are invested in the work of police reform, in continuing those and even in strengthening those beyond what the consent decree requires.”
Police commission, community groups skeptical of ending decree
Meanwhile, the Cleveland Community Police Commission — which was created by the consent decree— said that ending the agreement now “may be premature.”
The commission, the final authority over police policy and discipline, said in a statement Friday morning that while the city has made progress, monitoring team reports show that “important areas still require continued attention and sustained improvement.”
The most recent report, released in September, said that “significant work remains,” including “invest[ing] adequate resources to support the independent work” of the Community Police Commission and the Office of Professional Standards, which investigates citizen complaints against officers.
The commission’s statement said that ending the consent decree “should only happen when there is a system in place — agreed upon by all parties — that clearly demonstrates the reforms achieved can be maintained longterm.”
Commission Co-Chair John Adams told Signal Cleveland that the commission was not told in advance about Mayor Justin Bibb’s press conference announcing the move to end the decree. The commission had not heard from the administration as of Friday morning, he said.
The heads of two other police oversight bodies, OPS and the mayor’s Police Accountability Team, submitted affidavits attached to the city’s motion.
Adams said the commission has relied on Oliver and the monitor’s help in gaining access to city records it needs, and may need their input on a disagreement related to the city’s contracts with the police unions.
Losing the judge as a “mediator” between the commission and the city is “something that we need to figure out before we get out of the consent decree,” Adams said.
Black Lives Matter Cleveland and Citizens for a Safer Cleveland announced their opposition to ending the consent decree in a joint statement saying, “Cleveland is not ready.”
“During the press conference, city leaders openly admitted that many residents ‘do not feel the change,‘” the statement said. “Reform is not just about language on paper — it must be reflected in how people are treated in their daily lives.”
The two groups called for continuing federal oversight “until community trust indicators, civilian oversight capacity, and sustainable accountability structures are demonstrably strong and independently verified.”