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Cleveland PD Reluctant to Join Data-Sharing Network

Without Cleveland, the largest police force in the region, suburban police cannot access key information that could help them solve cases or use the data to strategize how to police areas of their communities.

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Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams, middle, is the only police chief in Cuyahoga County that has so far refused to join a county-wide data-sharing program aimed at helping police solve more crimes.
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(TNS) — Cleveland police is the lone holdout in a years long county-wide effort that would help police departments in Cuyahoga County’s 58 communities to better share crime data and information.

City police officials have not explained in detail why they don’t want to join the project that collects police reports and investigative information from municipal police departments in the county and makes the information searchable and available to police officers and detectives.

This has not stopped Cleveland police from requesting access to information already contained in the data collected by other communities through the program that it has thus far refused to participate.

The project, known as the Data Warehouse, also collects information from the county’s automatic license-plate readers that help police track cars involved in crimes. The project goal is to aid police with more detailed information than statewide databases such as the Ohio Law Enforcement Automated Data System operated by the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The effort began in 2017 and was launched for participating department in June 2019.

The project’s success, however, is incumbent upon getting cities to agree to share data, especially because criminals regularly commit crimes across city lines. Fifty-five of 58 municipal police agencies already agreed, and the other two— Westlake and Beachwood— said they expect to officially sign off on joining the program in the coming weeks.

Cleveland city and police officials did not make anyone available for an interview, but Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said in an emailed statement sent through a spokeswoman that collaboration with other law enforcement agencies is a top priority, and that the department is still trying to determine after more than two years if they want to join.

“The Division is currently evaluating all aspects of the program to ensure conditions of participation are understood and that this best fits the needs of the City of Cleveland and the Division of Police,” Williams’ statement said.

Without Cleveland — by far the largest police force service the largest community — suburban police cannot access key information that could help them solve cases or use the data to strategize how to police areas of their communities that border Cleveland.

“It’s a great system and tool for us and the municipalities, but the system is only as good as the information entered into it,” Cuyahoga County Sheriff David Schilling said.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley chairs the board that oversees the development and implementation of the county-wide records system. Cleveland police asked board members two weeks ago if they could access the county’s license-plate readers without having to share their own information.

The request shocked O’Malley and other board members, including Chagrin Valley Dispatch Center’s IT Director, Dan Grein, a retired Beachwood police officer, both said.

“There’s been a lot of talk from them for years but it never goes anywhere,” Grein said.

Cleveland would not have to spend any extra money to share information. Cuyahoga County spent some three years finding a system that would work with the different police department’s varying police-report systems.

Mike Herb, a former Cuyahoga County official oversaw the project for two years, said each department needs to make small tweaks to its records systems, but the county assumes the full cost and maintenance of the project that cost $2.2 million to get up and running.

Federal grants paid for about $1.2 million and the county covered the rest through a $5 fee attached to court costs in traffic violation convictions across the county. Those fees will also pay for the annual $488,000 annual cost of the system’s upkeep.

Cuyahoga County first sought to consolidate police information in 2011 and created the Regional Enterprise Data Sharing System. But that system only allowed police agencies using the same records system to see each other’s reports.

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish during his 2017 State-of-the-County speech announced the Data Warehouse initiative. The county contracted with Chagrin Valley Dispatch Center, who hired the Beachwood-based Online Dynamics, who developed the coding that allowed for more seamless information sharing regardless of the police departments’ varying records system, Herb said.

The system was expected to launch in late 2017, but Herb said it took time to convince the multitude of regional police chiefs of the program’s value. Herb said the municipalities also had law departments review the plans.

“There was always reservations about sharing what is really yours,” Herb said. “There were conversations about the legality of taking in everyone’s data. Criminals don’t have boundaries, and we’re trying to bring down those walls that separate everyone’s data.”

Herb said the county also integrated the license-plate readers and a new tool that allows officers to access digital copies of protection orders, which are not available through the statewide databases.

“It’s a more in-depth look into an individual than what you would normally get with LEADS so you know what you’re up against,” Schilling said. “It’s a safety tool and another way to get information out there that’s really needed on the streets.”

©2020 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.