Cleveland panel recommends missing persons unit be formed in response to discovery of remains

Cleveland panel recommends missing persons unit

CLEVELAND — In a report spurred by public outrage after the decomposing bodies of 11 women were found in a Cleveland sex offender’s home last fall, a panel advised the city on Wednesday to create a missing persons unit that will aggressively analyze and disseminate information about those cases.

The nearly 900-page report recommended a complete overhaul of the city’s handling of missing person and sex crime investigations, saying it should adopt better practices currently used in other cities. The three-member panel was appointed by the city after the decomposing bodies were found in and around the home of Anthony Sowell last fall.

The panel analyzed the police department’s internal policies, tagged along with patrol officers and conducted focus groups in the community to compile the report.

Sowell, who is awaiting trial in June, has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder, rape, assault and corpse abuse. Authorities say he lured vulnerable women — who were typically homeless or living alone and battling drug or alcohol addictions — to his home in an impoverished neighborhood and attacked them.

Many of the women found in Sowell’s home had been missing for weeks or months, and some had criminal records. Some victims’ families believe police didn’t take their disappearances seriously. Since the bodies were found, other women have come forward and said they were also attacked by Sowell.

A recommendation buried inside the report notes that Cleveland’s “marginalized” populations — including people with addictions or mental illness and homeless people — are often underserved, partly because city police officers do not understand the obstacles facing those people.

Officers and dispatchers must be trained in dealing with marginalized populations within a year, the report said.

The missing persons unit will be housed at a joint communications center downtown, said Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath. An oversight committee consisting of both city employees and missing persons experts will audit the police department to ensure that the new policies are implemented within a year.

“As time went by, communications broke down,” McGrath said of the missing women found in Sowell’s house. “We’re going to treat it as though they were just reported missing yesterday.”

McGrath said the new missing persons unit will include at least one or two police officers, but the bulk of the missing persons analysis will be conducted by civilian employees.

The report says there should be no waiting period for reporting a person missing, and that officers should be required to “completely fill in” the missing person report form.

Asked whether the panel had found evidence of incomplete missing persons reports in connection to the Sowell case, panel member Megan O’Bryan of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center said she personally had not seen any incomplete reports.

Officers should also be required to “demonstrate empathy at all times” toward individuals who come forward to report a person missing, the panel said. Additionally, patrol officers dealing with victims of a suspected sex crime must maintain a high level of sensitivity toward the victim and “show the utmost regard” for the victim’s emotional well-being, the panel said.

The report recommended that the city create a Web site to publicize missing persons cases and immediately relocate the police department’s sex crimes unit to a temporary location that is “victim-friendly and neutral.”

Currently, the city’s sex crimes unit and police stations where victims are likely to report a sex crime are not “inviting, warm or comforting,” the report noted.

Victims of sex crimes should not have to speak to a police officer through an open window or in an area where the sensitive conversation might be easily overheard, the report said.

Judy Martin, a vocal advocate for missing women in Cleveland who has worked with the victims’ families, was pleased with the panel’s recommendations, but said she hopes they will actually be carried out.

“You can put anything on paper,” she said. “And to change the attitudes or mindset of police officers might be difficult.”

The report also says police officers must accept a missing person report regardless of “where the person went missing or the residence of the missing person.”

The panel held closed-door sessions with victims’ family members before announcing the guidelines.

To help facilitate interagency communication, the new missing persons unit would have authority to recommend that a missing persons report be transferred to a homicide unit for investigation. The sex crimes unit should also implement a Web-based electronic case management system and communications protocol that would provide victims with better access to detectives, the report said.