CLEVELAND (WJW) – The FOX 8 I-Team has found Cleveland police now doing an internal review into a big delay in getting officers to a street where people called 911 after seeing gunshots being fired.
Last week, we revealed questions about the police response. So, we kept digging to find out more.
Wednesday, the city released 911 calls from the incident on July 25.
“Got people across the street yelling and screaming. Shots fired,” one caller told dispatch.
“How many shots?” dispatcher asked.
“Three,” the man answered.
Then, you hear another gunshot on the recording.
“Makes 4. Did you hear that?” the caller said.
A second caller to 911 said, “Ain’t nobody shot right now, but I’m telling you all, let you all know, pull up right now or somebody will be shot.”
Trouble erupted near East 149th and Lakeshore, but the first caller told us last week that he never saw patrol officers show up.
An initial report released to the I-Team didn’t reflect any officers responding.
“Nobody ever came out after a dispatcher hearing the shots? That’s pretty incredible. I hope they’re not too busy for that,” said witness Don Fenderson.
He wanted an explanation, and so did Councilman Mike Polensek.
Now, the chief says police did respond, but about two hours later. The department is doing an internal review to find out why.
“We’re looking into it. It’s under investigation now, so we’re looking into it. We’ll follow up and see what transpired,” Police Chief Wayne Drummond said.
The chief says the police department will dig into what else was happening that night at that time. How were officers tied up?
Since the department is chronically short-staffed, part of the investigation will also focus on how many officers were working at that time.
“It was approximately two hours until a car was made available,” Chief Drummond said. “It’s important to note that every single call is important to us. We want to make sure we have a responsive response from our officers.”
So, police plan to get to the bottom of why witnesses saw gunfire, but no officers, at least not anytime close to when they called 911.
“I hope somebody can stop some of this. Crazy here,” a caller told dispatch.
No one got hit by the gunfire.
Police are also still investigating the shooting.