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DOJ gives thumbs up to Warren PD on consent decree
By Joe Gorman
WARREN
City officials announced Thursday that the police department is in complete compliance with a consent decree from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Law Director Greg Hicks said the city was notified Tuesday by U.S. Attorney Steven H. Rosenbaum, chief of special litigation for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, that police have met all 47 standards the DOJ set for the department in the decree. The notice means Warren now has one of the best departments in the country, Hicks said.
“We now are the standard for police across the United States,” Hicks said.
The decree was formulated in 2012 after a series of citizens complaints about use of force and illegal searches dating back to 2004. City officials were able to meet the standards by increasing training for officers and supervisors and by negotiations with the DOJ, Hicks said.
Hicks credited Police Chief Eric Merkel and Assistant Law Director Traci Timko Sabau, who worked closely with both police and the Justice Department on implementing new policies to help police meet those standards.
“Without those two, we wouldn’t be here,” Hicks said.
Sabau said the biggest changes in the department that came from meeting the standards of the consent decree are training standards; standards for police use of force; reporting for use of force; and dealing with public complaints.
Officers and supervisors received intense training in those and other subjects, and internal-affairs policies for officers got a lot of attention in the new training.
In a letter to the city, Rosenbaum wrote that DOJ lawyers looked at police records from 2016 and found 41 instances where force was used and 13 citizens complaints against officers – and that the city met all criteria for investigating each one of those instances “faithfully and fully.” The department also fulfilled all of its training requirements in 2016 as well.
Also, Rosenbaum wrote, the DOJ talked with community members and they credited Merkel with being open to community feedback and reforming the department.
“As reflected by our most recent findings, WPD has made meaningful progress since the parties entered into this agreement just more than five years ago,” Rosenbaum wrote.
Safety Service Director Enzo Cantalamessa said he had several emotions when he received the word that the city had met all the requirements. He said he was proud of the rank-and-file officers who took the training to heart and their supervisors, and he also said it shows their commitment to the residents of the city and to their profession.
Cantalamessa also said the news will help the city’s economic condition. He said employers and potential employees will now know that the city has one of the best police departments in the nation and that should attract people to come to Warren.
Merkel thanked Sabau for her help and also his officers, both those on the street and those who worked in internal affairs in the past, including lieutenants Jeff Cole and Brian Holmes and former Lt. Dan Mason, who is now a major with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office.
“A lot of hard work went into this,” Merkel said.
Merkel said the department’s use-of-force incidents and citizens complaints have decreased in the past few years, while arrests have been about the same, which tells him the new policies implemented to meet the standards of the decree do not diminish officers’ capability to do their jobs.