Cleveland and the US Department of Justice agreed last year to allow the court to oversee police reform after a federal investigation concluded there was a pattern of Cleveland police officers using excessive force and violating people's civil rights.

A monitoring team hired to oversee the federal consent decree submitted the plan to US District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. Monday.

CLEVELAND — The city must devise a new use-of-force policy and have officers trained to implement it by the end of 2016 under a court-ordered plan to reform the troubled Cleveland Police Department.

The first-year plan includes requirements that the city create policies and programs to address those concerns, including development of a ''comprehensive and integrated community and problem-oriented policing model.''


A key element is the fostering of better relationships between police and the communities they serve. The consent decree requires officers to do their jobs free of bias and prejudice.

Matthew Barge, who heads the monitoring team that reports to Oliver, said the plan was devised with the support and collaboration of Cleveland officials. City officials declined to be interviewed about the plan last week.

''The specific plan sets up a framework for accomplishing some key work in fundamental areas,'' Barge said. ''That's something everyone involved thought made sense.''

Steven Dettelbach, the US attorney for northern Ohio, said the amount of input and collaboration on the first-year plan is evidence of the commitment to reform the police force.

''This 70-page, painstaking to-do list delivers a clear public message: As Clevelanders, we are not afraid to get down to work,'' Dettelbach said.

Under the plan, Cleveland is required to devise policies over the next 12 months on training; create a new recruitment policy that better reflects the makeup of the city, which is more than half black; come up with a procedure to deal with people who are having mental health crises; hire a civilian to head the department's internal affairs unit; and overhaul the city's Office of Professional Standards, which investigates citizen complaints about police.


Mayor Frank Jackson has said the consent decree will cost the city millions of dollars over the coming years.

The plan requires the city to conduct a study in the next year to assess its needs and priorities for equipment and resources, including the number of officers needed to ''fulfill its mission and to satisfy the requirements of the agreement.''

All changes and the crafting of new policies will be done with input from the community and officers across the ranks, Barge said. He said reforming the department ''isn't going to happen in a conference room. To change an organization and to change the culture, you have to do reform in a bottom-up kind of way.''

In a separate development Monday, the US Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services launched a review of the San Francisco Police Department, which has faced scrutiny over the shooting death of a young black man and reports of homophobic and racist text messages being exchanged between officers.

Law enforcement experts said such a review is a less onerous process for police than if the DOJ's Civil Rights Division had launched an investigation. That division can force departments into court-monitored legal settlements after finding constitutional violations, as it did in Cleveland and Ferguson, Mo.

A review by the so-called COPS office is usually designed to help the targeted department improve its operations, said University of Missouri St. Louis criminal justice professor David Klinger. ''It's much more a partnership to improve policies and practices as opposed to a court takeover,'' Klinger said.


Last week, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee called on the DOJ to look into the department after calls from the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers for the family of Mario Woods, 26, who was shot dead by officers Dec. 2.

Police said he stabbed a stranger and then refused to drop a knife when approached by officers.