The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department revised its policy to restrict pursuits after innocent bystanders Tamya Westmoreland and Sharday Elder were killed during separate high-speed chases involving deputies.
The new policy will only allow pursuits involving violent or felony offenses like murder, assault, robbery and rape. The policy also now bans pursuits for misdemeanor offenses.
The policy changes follow months of outcry from community activists and Cuyahoga County Council members, who worried about liability issues stemming from the sheriff’s downtown patrol. Deputies had been initiating chases for minor traffic offenses.
The council members have been asking detailed questions for months about the policy and downtown unit, but Sheriff Harold Pretel has not provided answers, some members said.
The Marshall Project – Cleveland reported this year that Black drivers received 75% of the citations from the Downtown Safety Patrol. In another instance, a deputy shot several teens and pointed a rifle out of his window during a car chase.
That same deputy was also found to be unfit to be an officer on a suburban force after he flunked training.
The downtown unit was recently renamed the Community Support Unit. The change was made by Pretel “to better reflect the proactive work the unit is already doing in collaboration with municipalities throughout Cuyahoga County,” a county spokesperson wrote in a statement.
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their Cleveland newsletter and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.