After One Year of Cuyahoga County's Downtown Safety Patrol Unit, Is the City Center Safer?

A couple of months ago, near the end of July, seven Cuyahoga County Sheriff Department deputies and their sergeant sat around a conference room table on the sixth floor of the Justice Center to discuss, and prepare themselves to address, the state of downtown crime.

It was 6 p.m. roll call, a Friday. The deputies had by then geared up—with tasers loaded—and had, in nearby office cubicles, kevlar and patrol rifles sitting prepped for the hours ahead. There were Red Bulls popped open on the table; the room had the faintest smell of sweat and body spray.

The subject at hand was guns. Officer Jamieson Ritter, the Cleveland cop who was killed while serving a warrant, was just buried two weeks before, and tension seemed to underlie the roll call.

And gun crime was still top of mind in the city center -- in May, two men got into a confrontation at the club Medusa on St. Clair, when one took out a gun and started shooting. (One died the following day.)

These deputies and their sergeant, officer of the Cuyahoga County Downtown Safety Patrol, were called a year previous as a response, both in Mayor Bibb’s and Sheriff Harold Pretel’s mind, to escalating concerns for gun violence in the center of the county.

Last July, gun crimes were up. CPD officers were thin. Then, in the early morning hours of July 8, 2023, 26-year-old Jaylon Jennings shot nine club-goers in front of Rumor on West 6th. (With dozens of CPD officers present.) Downtown seemed unsafe. “We had officers assigned here,” then Chief Wayne Drummond said at a press conference. “Yet this individual still decided to use that weapon.” Two weeks later, Pretel announced eight county deputies would be hired, at the cost of $1.1 million.

But is Downtown actually safer since? The answer is somewhere in the malleable stew of perception and reality. So far this year, DSP deputies have taken 127 guns off Downtown streets, made 125 drug-related arrests and handed out 373 traffic citations.

Citywide, the numbers are better.

On Wednesday, Mayor Bibb joined CPD Deputy Chief Ali Pillow and a dozen other city officials at CPD's Third District building to announce that, across all of Cleveland, crime went down 13 percent this summer compared to 2023. (Save for rapes, arson and burglaries.)

Yet, in city data analyzed by Scene, the remainder is a lot more complex: though the number of crimes reported in Ward 3—which includes Downtown—are down this past winter with the DSP patrolling, crimes reported actually went up earlier this spring. (The county doesn't keep an open data portal.) Which Sgt. Dan Comerford told Scene is an expected byproduct of their patrolling.

“If we’re out there making more arrests and having more interactions, it’s going to look like crime is going up,” he said. He pointed to guns confiscated as a caveat. “Without us being there, realistically that’s 127 guns in the hands of felons. Every bullet out of someone’s gun could be someone else’s life.”

That overriding sense is one the deputies are keenly aware of.

At that roll call in July, Comerford played two body cam videos detailing calls gone horribly awry: a glock pulled out in front of Home Depot; a deranged man with a warrant rising from his basement with an AR-15. The Medusa confrontation still seemed fresh.

A “shooting could be for anything,” Deputy Cody Hutchinson said at roll. “Sometimes it’s the silliest thing you could ever imagine.”

“It could just be two rival areas beefing,” Jim DeCredico, the DSP’s K-9 handler whose right arm is a sleeve of tattoos, said.

“You know, I feel like 95 percent of the time, alcohol or drugs are involved,” Deputy Isen Vajusi added. “It’s like, whatever it is, the decision making isn’t there.”

Comerford, who’s 46 and speaks often with his hands tucked into his kevlar, agreed. “All of crime, and crime prevention, comes down to changing the hearts of persons,” he said. “They’re having a dispute with someone? Their heart then goes into that violence.”

After tasers were checked, and K-9 dog Felix’s nose was warmed, Scene joined Hutchinson, who the guys appropriately call Hutch, on his patrol. Like all of his fellow deputies, Hutch opted to join the DSP following an email from the county last July. A bulky stoic who transferred from CPD’s Fifth District, Hutch’s policing philosophy seems connected to leader Comerford’s.

“People don’t want to come here, because they’re in fear of something,” Hutch, 28, said pulling onto Euclid. With his Chief Wahoo tattoo and black sunglasses. “They’re in fear they’re gonna get harmed, robbed, caught in the crossfire.”

His mind reverts to the Warehouse District shooting. “It’s disheartening,” he said, driving past an array of couples in front of the Ohio Theater. “As much as we try and do, though, it’s not possible for us to prevent everything.”

After a line of seemingly rote calls—a man biking in the wrong direction, a couple stopped for expired plates—Hutch signaled a black Audi heading south on East 9th. He ran the plates after the SUV lane-changed without signaling. The front tint, Hutch suspects, is illegal. “They have a warrant out for terroristic threats,” Hutch said, turning on his lights. “We’re gonna stop.”

“Wait, what?”

“Terroristic threats,” Hutch repeated.

In front of Progressive Field, six deputies convened with Hutch behind the Audi. The driver, a 26-year-old Black man, is in his mother’s car. DeCredico brought in Felix, who sniffed and indicated something worth attention. The man is detained. “So I’m getting locked up?” the man cried from DeCredico’s car.

“You’re being detained right now, man,” Hutch said.

“Hey, Sarge!” DeCredico shouted to Comerford, who was standing watch. The Audi had been torn apart. DeCredico held up the tied-up end of a baggie.

“See what I told you?” Comerford told Scene. “Law enforcement is the fine line between safety and chaos.”

At precisely 2:38 in the morning on July 8, 2023, 26-year-old Jaylon Jennings walked out of Rumor, a club on West 6th, and began shooting at a crowd in front of the parking lot across the street. Nine were hit, mostly in the arms and legs. All survived. After a day-long manhunt, and a $50,000 reward, Jennings was found. In August, he was sentenced to 16 to 21 years in prison.

Downtown’s most alarming mass shooting in decades led to an apparent wake-up call at the county level. City Hall had yet to debut its RISE Plan—a means to fix its officer shortage with higher starting pay and other incentives—which meant county officers were needed, as Pretel told Scene in June at the FBI’s new Crime Gun Intelligence Center, to “keep the temperature down.”

“We need to keep the pressure on,” Pretel added, “so that negative elements will not feel comfortable engaging in disorder downtown.”

Yet negative elements popped up. In April, two men shot at each other in front of the Frozen Daiquiri Bar off Bolivar. In March, 36-year-old Juan Ruiz Lopez died on Public Square from numerous gunshot wounds at four in the morning. In April, a Corner Alley bartender’s hand was grazed by the bullet fired by a man irritated in conversation. (At one in the afternoon.) And in May, the asphalt under the GE Chandelier was lit aflame by teenagers who drifted in cars for minutes around it before police eventually arrived.

In between, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, witnessed the Guardians top their division, saw the Total Solar Eclipse, watched debut films at CIFF, sang, dance, ate, scootered, biked, parked, drank—without any police contact whatsoever.

Which brings up a sort of gray area, both for crime and police. Though Downtown has one of the lowest crime counts among Cleveland’s neighborhoods, it's host to the county’s highest amount of foot traffic. Which paves way to a lingering perception: crime happens to people out walking, so crime is going to happen to me.

In interviews with ten business owners, suburbanites and Downtown residents, many were both well aware of the tiny likelihood of them becoming a statistic yet still hyper aware of the people around them. And most, if not all, made one suggestion to help remedy their anxiety: more police out walking the beat.

“When my GPS took me here today, I was kind of, like, ‘Crap, we’re going downtown.’ I got a little nervous,” Nicole Falbo, 37, told Scene as she watched her two children play in Public Square’s splash pad. “I mean, I would say, if there was a police officer somewhere here, I would feel safer. Maybe just one or two. A patrol car even!”
[content-2] Over on St. Clair, Tyler Frolo, a 24-year-old bellhop at the Marriott, was on a cigarette break. “Usually they’re in their cars, or on their bicycles. Presence alone makes people feel safer,” he said. “Just having them around is a little bit of a deterrent for people who may want to do something they’re not supposed to.”

The perceived lack of police presence roiled Eddie Taylor, who was serving slice pizza at Jake's off Public Square. Homeless readily come in and disturb customers, he said, or sell drugs out on the corner. He said that the “aggressiveness” of those disturbing the peace has lead him to consider moving his business out of Downtown altogether. (As did the Dollar Bank next to him.)

Unless, of course, Taylor said, he sees more cops. “At first, they would be around, lurking, doing circles on Public Square,” Taylor said, about the DSP. “You know, showing their face more.”

“But now,” he added, “I don’t see them.”

When asked about DSP’s foot patrol policies, Comerford said that it’s better to allocate the few officers he has with fast mobility options. “Foot patrol is good for small areas,” he said. “But when you’re dealing with an area like Downtown Cleveland, you need vehicles to be more effective.”

Pressed with the concerns of Downtowners, Mayor Bibb himself recalled his own "safety walk" in August with Chief Dorothy Todd, and seemed to feel that the DSP could be used to at least calm the anxieties of those walking the sidewalks.

"Across all five police districts, I've given the command to make sure that we are aggressive around quality of life enforcement," he told Scene at the Third District on Wednesday. "Those nuisance issues, those things are leading indicators to violent crime in many parts of our city—I know that's a priority for the chief and the safety director and priority for me as well, too."

But, the observer may ask, where’s the line between too few and too many police?

Over-policing, and police that engage in use of force, has been top of mind for Cleveland since long before the city entered into a Consent Decree with the DOJ.

It's another grey area that’s given local activists pause. Especially after Comerford’s predecessor, Sgt. Timothy Coyne, was seen tasing and punching 46-year-old Kevin Kinds, who is Black, on a call outside the Justice Center. (An internal investigation found Coyne in the clear; Hinds’ charges were dropped.) “As long as you have folks that could do things outside of the requirements of the Decree,” Kareem Henton, the vice president of Black Lives Matter Cleveland told Scene, “I’m not going to feel safe, and I don’t think anyone else should either.”

Comerford maintained the goodwill of his deputies—he loves to use the phrase “constitutional policing”—yet is still unsure of the right police threshold. “Some might say, ‘Holy shit! It’s like an army out there!’ Or, ‘Oh wow, is this a bad area?’” Comerford said.

“Or, if there are too few: it’s not enough,” Comerford added. He chuckled at the thought of criticism. “I mean, that right there, that’s the bane of our existence.”

In early September, Scene asked Comerford if he would walk the beat downtown, both as a fitting followup as summer crime began to dip into fall and as a direct response to the ongoing demands for visibility. Comerford agreed. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you need from me.”

On September 12, around 8 p.m., Comerford met with Scene on Public Square outfitted in full kevlar. A ghost tour was concluding next to a group of four out after office work. A faint crowd roar was heard from Progressive Field. Two CPD officers sat in their cars on Superior.

As Comerford walked east on Euclid, he narrated a kind of background to his policing philosophy. He wrestled in high school, became a corrections officer in Grafton at 18, a Put-in-Bay cop at 21. He joined the county in 2001. When asked if he takes his nieces and nephews downtown, if he himself finds it safe, Comerford deferred to his job as if he were in sales. “Do you go to the office on your day off?” he said. “This is work.”

Through the hour, Comerford circled Downtown with a cop's eye for concern. (“That guy’s just standing there, doing his own thing,” he said about a man smoking on Euclid. “But that could be something else. We just don’t know.”) Diners on Prospect looked askance, others stopped Comerford to ask for directions to the Marble Room. “It’s 12th and Euclid,” Comerford said. “Wait—sixth and Euclid. Right?”

The whole normalcy of the matter—a cop walking a downtown beat—seemed to rile Comerford. “That’s kind of the sad part: the media can put out this big, bad narrative of law enforcement being, you know, big, bad mean guys.”

“What should we say instead?”

“We’re just here to help. And we’re gonna go after bad actors.”

At that, Comerford’s radio went off. “Calling all units,” a woman’s voice said. “I have a GSW in need. Twelve and Chester. Description unknown of who shot him.”

“Thirty-six to units over at 12th,” Comerford said. “We got First Aid started on that male?”

“Yes,” the voice said.

Comerford drove with Scene to the corner of Perk Plaza, where five other deputies were combing the park with flashlights out. Hutch and Deputy Isen Vajusi were already rolling out crime scene tape. There was yet another confrontation; a man in a gray hoodie had shot a homeless person. He took off.

“He was a known aggressor,” a woman carrying Heinen’s bags told Scene on 12th, about the victim. “And you know what? Somebody finally got his ass.”

By 9:15 p.m., a lieutenant and two detectives were called to help survey, look for a bullet casing, check cameras. Two hours pass without a lead or clear footage.

Did Deputy DeCredico stop the victim’s bleeding in time? (He did.) How far did the shooter get on foot? Was he using a revolver or a pocket .38? (“They got some information,” Comerford later said. “It’s not clear just yet.”)

Questions overwhelmed the five deputies as they continued to scan for casings. At one point, Deputy Isen Vajusi, who was tasked with keeping the crime log, stopped for a reality check.

“It’s the U.S. man,” he told Scene. “The only country in the world where this happens like this.” [content-3]
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