Watch: Group overseeing Cleveland police calls 911

CLEVELAND (WJW) – Video released to the FOX 8 I-Team shows a group overseeing Cleveland police calling for help in an incident that tied up officers for 45 minutes.

It’s just the latest trouble for the Cleveland Police Commission, a group set up to be a police watchdog.

July 9, officers scrambled to a call from a group watching over the Cleveland Police Department.

The executive director called 911 from a meeting, telling dispatch, “we have a person disrupting a public meeting.”

The city set up the group to oversee officer discipline and policies, but the group has been bogged down by infighting and chaos. And now, this.

“I was just trying to participate in the meeting. They’re saying my participation is a disruption because I disagree with them,” said commission member Terri Wang to an officer. “So, I’m not debating, but I’m not going to leave, so you can make a decision.”

But, another woman told the officer, “she has refused to leave the table.”

Police video reveals, to settle the dispute, it took four officers 45 minutes.

We’ve shown you, at times, Cleveland police get backed up on 911 calls. Some callers sit through long delays waiting for help.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen police commission meetings get loud and even wild before. A protest even erupted as the city introduced the commission.

The group is now nearly two years old, yet it still has never heard a case. It’s still setting up the process.

We contacted Executive Director Jason Goodrick.

“Here it is, almost two years, your organization still hasn’t heard a case. You still need the police there,” the I-Team reminded him.

He defended the group, saying, “the commission is working, and we are moving work forward. The majority of the commissioners want to show up. They want to get their work done and they want to make this thing a success.”

Back to this latest incident, dispatch notes tell us two officers sent didn’t have working body cameras. So, police wanted other officers with working cameras. However, after all that, police determined it was simply a civil matter.

On the police video, an officer said, at the scene, “I would rather not arrest anybody.”

Wang, the commission member at the heart of this, did not want to comment for this story.

Two commission leaders recently asked the mayor to take her off of the commission.

City spokesman Tyler Sinclair issued a short statement, saying, “we have hired outside counsel to review various complaints that have been made relative to the Community Police Commission.”

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