CHPD's Meet the Police program gives voice to residents' frustrations

Since March, the Cleveland Heights Police Department has been giving residents an opportunity to meet with officers through its Meet Your Police program. Every Thursday night, the department hosts an open meeting in the basement of city hall, where community members can discuss their concerns with the two officers present.

Despite the diversity of disturbances to which officers regularly respond, one topic has dominated recent Meet Your Police sessions: unruly youth. Investigator Falisa Barry, the department representative at the Aug. 11 meeting, said "the chief complaints right now are juvenile complaints."

Although raised by residents throughout Cleveland Heights, the complaints are startling similar—concerning large groups of teenage boys, whom residents say are roaming the streets, making noise, trespassing, and harassing people.

Tensions between youths and adults in Cleveland Heights have been rising since the Coventry Street Fair disturbance in late June. Toward the end of that event, a large group of youths from all over the Cleveland Metro area converged on Coventry Road, where they started fighting and creating commotion. Forty police officers were dispatched to the scene, and nine arrests were made.

In response to the mayhem, a six o’clock curfew was instituted in the city. While some have balked at the severity of this measure, those present at recent Meet Your Police meetings seemed largely disappointed in the ineffectiveness of this measure, informing the police that the youths in their neighborhood seem rowdier than ever.

Some Heights residents are taking matters into their own hands. One attendee of the Aug. 11 meeting asked Barry about the legality of installing cameras on his property, hoping that the devices would deter the youths from trespassing on it. Investigator Barry informed him that if the cameras covered only his property, it was legal.

The Heights’s problem with unruly youth may run deeper than simply minor disturbances. Anton Billings, in attendance at the Aug. 18 meeting, runs Rent-a-Dad, an intervention program for delinquent teens. He claims that there is a gang problem in the area about which local residents are "in denial," and hopes to start working with Cleveland Heights police to bring order back to the community.

Meanwhile, Barry and her colleagues will continue enforcing the curfew. There is a $50 fine for the parents or guardians of children apprehended after 6 p.m. in the Coventry and Cedar Lee business districts.

Meet the Police sessions take place every Thursday night, from 6 to 8 p.m., in the basement of Cleveland Heights City Hall, at 40 Severance Circle.