Loomis asked to quit commission Police reform overseers cite his repeated absences from meetings

Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, wrote an open letter again criticizing the city's settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.

(Joshua Gunter/cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The head of Cleveland's largest police union on Wednesday took another stab at trying to de-legitimize a settlement the city entered into with the U.S. Justice Department to reform its police department.

Steve Loomis, the blustery president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, wrote in "an open letter to the community" that settlements like the one in Cleveland have forced cities with tight budgets to pay millions of dollars, even as violent crime rates go up. In the end, the settlements have "done more to damage the situation than to improve it."

He wrote that the city will spend more than $14 million to the police monitor required by the settlement, known as a consent decree, even though the monitor's contract is capped at $4.95 million. In a text message, he said the number he cited is the total estimated cost the city gave the union for the contract negotiation budget.

But the union president said the money spent on the monitor could be better spent hiring more police officers or buying new cruisers, "both of which we desperately need."

Loomis has been a vocal critic of the city's settlement, known as a consent decree, since it was signed in May 2015. He appointed himself as the union's designee on the city's Community Police Commission, and most of the members have called for his resignation in the past few months.

At the same time, he appears to have been emboldened by the election of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who made statements on the campaign trail and through surrogates that were supportive of police. Loomis said shortly after Trump's election in November that union attorneys were looking at if there was a way to change Cleveland's consent decree.

The union head has also made his support of Trump well known. He participated in a roundtable discussion with the president-elect when Trump swung through Ohio, and the union endorsed Trump. The city also opened an investigation into whether he committed misconduct when he was seen wearing his police uniform at a Trump rally in Akron.

Loomis' letter says the union looks forward to working with the Trump's administration.

The letter says Cleveland's consent decree and others across the country are based on political agendas, and not facts. He said the Justice Department's findings were not borne out by facts, saying there were 36,000 arrests and less than 400 uses of force in 2015, along with fewer than 300 complaints to the Police Review Board.

The Justice Department's investigation into the city was completed in 2014, thus those numbers were not included in its report.

"Using simple math you will find anything but a statistically significant use of excessive force was by the Cleveland Division of Police," Loomis wrote. "Nevertheless, the reputation of every single officer in the CDP has been tarnished."

He wrote that "the false narrative about police in our country" is exacerbated by rising crime rates, low employment and substandard schools. He wrote that always police want to improve, but that its suggestions to the city and the Justice Department "have, remarkably, been simultaneously commended and ignored."

A city spokesman, in response to Loomis' letter and whether he felt Loomis was emboldened by Trump's presidency, said "we're going to live within the confines of the consent decree as it exists."

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment. An email sent to the police monitor was not immediately returned.

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