Dashboard signing
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty, left, and City of Cleveland Finance Director Sharon Dumas sign an agreement that will allow the prosecutor's office to reimburse Cleveland up to $500,000 for dashboard cameras in 275 police cruisers.
(City of Cleveland)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland police department is one step closer to getting dashboard cameras in its cruisers after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty and the city inked an agreement this week.
McGinty and Cleveland Finance Director Sharon Dumas formally signed a contract that will allow the prosecutor's office to reimburse the city up to $500,000 to buy and install cameras in 275 police cars.
"The dash cams will result in a sharp increase in convictions," McGinty said in a news release. "Police misconduct complaints will drop like a rock, and public confidence will rise dramatically."
McGinty has advocated for Cleveland police to have dashboard cameras since 2014, before the department deployed body cameras. McGinty offered $500,000 from the prosecutor's discretionary fund, which is paid for through criminal forfeitures.
The act is one of McGinty's last as he prepares to leave office after being defeated in the March Democratic primary by challenger Michael O'Malley, who ran unopposed in the general election. O'Malley takes office Monday.
McGinty has argued that dashboard cameras could have provided crucial pieces of evidence in investigations into controversial police shootings of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in 2012 and Tamir Rice in 2014.
Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was charged with involuntary manslaughter for his role in the shooting deaths of Russell and Williams, and Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell acquitted him after a lengthy trial in 2015. There was no video of the shooting.
A dash cam also might have clarified the events leading up to Tamir's shooting death outside the Cudell Recreation Center on the city's West Side. The boy had a replica pellet gun in his waistband at the time of the shooting.
A surveillance video shows a police cruiser skid to a stop beside a gazebo. Officer Timothy Loehmann jumped out and immediately fired two shots at Tamir at close range.
Loehmann has stated that Tamir started to pull a gun from his waistband and he ordered the boy to show his hands. But there was no way to verify that claim without dash camera footage.
McGinty's office presented evidence in the shooting to a grand jury, which opted not to charge Loehmann or the driver of the cruiser, Frank Garmback.
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