Cleveland police aren't following departmental rules in clearing rape cases, analysis shows

rape commission.JPGView full sizeCleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, left, formed a three-person commission in December 2009 to review how the city's police department handles crimes involving sexual assaults. Megan O'Bryan, second from left, says clearing cases improperly means offenders are not held accountable, and can have devastating consequences for both public safety and the lives of victims.

Leila Atassi, Rachel Dissell and Gabriel Baird / Plain Dealer Reporters

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland police broke departmental rules and sidestepped rigid national law enforcement standards when they prematurely cleared rape cases without sex-crimes detectives ever identifying the suspects.

A Plain Dealer analysis found that police improperly cleared at least 52 rape cases in 2006 and 2007, giving the impression they had solved more crimes than they had.

But in reality, unknown assailants who abducted victims from city streets or bus stops and held them hostage while they raped them are not being pursued.

That leaves them free to attack other victims. The FBI crime-reporting standards, which are similar to Cleveland's own police procedures, call for detectives to keep sexual-assault cases open until a suspect is identified.

The federal rules say that to close a case without an arrest -- a classification known as "exceptional clearance" -- the police must meet all of the following criteria:

* Clearly identify at least one of the offenders and know the suspect's whereabouts.

* Have enough evidence to support an arrest, charges and prosecution.

* Be prevented from making an arrest by a reason outside their control.

Acceptable reasons for exceptionally clearing a case range from a suspect's death to a victim who chooses not to pursue prosecution.

But in Cleveland, police are using those justifications without first identifying a suspect. And the city is counting the improperly cleared cases toward the police department's overall clearance rate, a widely recognized barometer of a law enforcement agency's performance.

Where to get help

  • If you have been sexually assaulted and need support, call the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center's 24-hour hot line: 216-619-6192, or visit

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    Most commonly in Cleveland, cases die when detectives declare victims "uncooperative," when they don't answer phone calls or show up to the department's downtown offices for interviews.

    According to the newspaper's analysis of data provided by the city last month, about 56 percent of all rape investigations during the two years in question have been cleared -- meaning there was an arrest, the crime was proven unfounded, the case was turned over to another agency or it was labeled an exceptional clearance.

    The analysis revealed that in the two-year period, sex-crimes detectives cleared nearly 2 1/2 times as many cases by exception as they did by arrest. At least 16 percent of exceptionally cleared cases examined by The Plain Dealer were classified as such in violation of the department's own policy.

    The Plain Dealer originally requested data on exceptionally cleared cases in March 2010, but the request was not completely fulfilled for more than nine months.

    Orders prohibit closing cases

    In response to a separate public-records request in December 2009, a police spokesman provided The Plain Dealer with a copy of the general police orders, which clearly prohibit detectives from closing cases before suspects are identified. But Cleveland Police Deputy Chief Edward Tomba said in a recent interview that he didn't think that practice was against department policy.

    "We have numerous cases where a suspect never gets identified, and we clean that case up," he said. "To me, that category of exceptional clearance, that's just the way we've done it for 30 years."

    Tomba said that whether a case has been cleared or is considered open is an arbitrary semantic distinction.

    Cases are cleared when the investigation hits a wall, he said, but any case could be reopened if new information were to emerge within the 20-year statute of limitations.

    The policy, however, specifically states that exceptionally cleared cases are considered closed.

    "I'd consider those cases cold, not necessarily closed," Tomba said of the dozens of improperly cleared cases. "Really, it's just words. So instead of 60 exceptional cleanups, you'd have 60 open cases? OK, but they'd still be sitting in the same place -- not being investigated."

    Tomba said police have a data analyst who continually searches for common themes and keywords among all cases, even those that are closed, that could flag the work of a serial rapist.

    And a new electronic case management system, which is expected to be up and running soon, is supposed to help detectives keep track of cases, Tomba said. But he added that the system is not sophisticated enough to do the work of the data analyst.

    Tomba said that most of the time detectives notice patterns when they discuss their cases with each other.

    But when it comes to clearing cases, Tomba said detectives take their cues from city prosecutors, who review the results of the investigation and determine whether there is enough evidence to move forward.

    If not -- and detectives say they have no further investigative leads -- the case typically is closed. One of three supervisors in the unit signs off on the decision, Tomba said. And once it's closed, detectives will revisit the investigation only if a witness comes forward with new information.

    Do detectives sign off on cases too quickly?

    An earlier Plain Dealer analysis revealed that city prosecutors reject more than 70 percent of sexual assault cases that Cleveland detectives present. But cases often are turned over for prosecutors' review before there is a suspect to prosecute. And how much investigative work detectives do on some cases is questionable.

    Joanne Archambault, a retired sergeant in the San Diego Police Department who now trains detectives across the country on investigating sex crimes, reviewed dozens of Cleveland's investigative files at The Plain Dealer's request.

    The former sex-crimes unit supervisor said in a recent interview that she would not have signed off on the majority of the Cleveland investigations.

    "The bottom line is, if I'm a detective, did I do everything I could do?" said Archambault, who is the executive director of End Violence Against Women International. "If the victim knows I care and am doing my job, the chances that they'll participate in the investigation are much greater. But basically, I don't see much of an investigation being done here at all. Witnesses, suspects and experts, like forensic examiners, were generally not interviewed before cases were closed."

    In many of the case files, investigations are summed up in a few sentences and don't involve much more than leaving voicemail messages and sending certified letters to victims.

    In one example , a woman said she was waiting at an East Side bus shelter when three men grabbed her from behind, dragged her to an abandoned building and gang-raped her.

    The detective assigned to the case left his business card at her address with a note asking her to call. He could not reach the woman by phone or certified mail.

    The detective presented the details to a prosecutor without an identified suspect. And the case was cleared, citing an uncooperative victim.

    Another woman was walking down a West Side street and accepted a ride from an unknown man. Once she got in the car, he threatened to stab her if she didn't take off her clothes.

    He parked the car, put on rubber gloves and sexually assaulted her. The victim managed to escape, naked from the waist down, pounding on doors and begging residents to call 9-1-1.

    The detective assigned to the case called the victim on the phone twice, but no one answered.

    Nearly three months passed before the detective visited the victim's address. The investigative log indicated that the detective planned to leave a business card, but found that the woman was home.

    Rather than interview the victim in her own home, which experts recognize as a best practice in sexual-assault investigations, the detective scheduled an interview at the sex crimes unit downtown.

    The woman didn't show up for the interview and didn't respond to a voicemail or a certified letter.

    The case was "cleaned up" after a prosecutor's review -- even though a suspect never was identified.

    Jackson pledges caseload audit

    Megan O'Bryan, president and chief executive of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, said in a recent interview that she hopes a caseload audit that Mayor Frank Jackson pledged to commission this year will reveal whether cases are falling through the cracks because detectives are overloaded.

    The sex-crimes unit is made up of 10 detectives, each responsible for about 30 cases at any given time. And 549 cases from just the two years in question are still considered open.

    O'Bryan, who serves on a committee appointed by Jackson to track promised changes to the way police investigate sexual assault, said she also is optimistic that a newly appointed group of city prosecutors trained to handle sex crimes will help educate detectives on why their cases get rejected.

    Clearing cases improperly means offenders are not held accountable, which can have devastating consequences for both public safety and the lives of victims, O'Bryan said.

    "Only 20 to 40 percent of sex crimes are ever reported to law enforcement to begin with," she said. "I think part of the low reporting rate is attributable to a lack of confidence in the system. It is in the public's best interest to create a community where victims are encouraged to report, and where they are believed and supported when they do."

    O'Bryan said most sexual assaults are serial crimes, so it is highly likely that suspects who remain at large will claim future victims.

    Details in the narratives of cleared cases leave the chilling impression that some suspects might have committed similar crimes in the past and know how to evade police.

    Some attackers went to great lengths to obscure evidence, forcing their victims to wipe themselves clean or shower.

    One suspect even told his victim he shaved all his body hair so police wouldn't find any on the woman.

    Police still do not know the identity of that man, who forced his victim into his SUV at gunpoint, raped her, then dumped her on a city street. But as far as the department's clearance rate is concerned, that case is closed.

    To reach these Plain Dealer reporters: latassi@plaind.com, 216-999-4549

    rdissell@plaind.com, 216-999-4121

    gbaird@plaind.com, 216-999-5833

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