CLEVELAND - Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Harold Pretel says the five, essentially part-time, homicide investigators will be helping with tasks like conducting interviews and collecting evidence on new files.
That doesn't help families like that of Jameela Hasan.
Ayesha Hasan says she's tired of her daughter being an unsolved murder statistic.She was stabbed to death in 2012. 68 months and still no answers. Ayesha told our partner, Channel 3 News "(Jameela) doesn’t just exist in a file on someone’s desk. she was a person, a mom, an aunt, a daughter...”
Police Union President Jeff Folmer, says moving 5 investigators from the neighborhoods, over to help with homicide is hardly what he calls additional resources, saying that "those investigators are from districts that are already strapped, and the manpower shortage has been an issue for years.
The CPD is reporting 74 homicides so far in 2018, a caseload being worked by only 13 detectives.Compare that to Columbus, who had 55 detectives to work a total of 99 cases last year.
Pretel says the hope is to hire more full time homicide detectives by September. However, it will probably be “fewer than the 5 on temporary detail," but, at least it's a step in the right direction.
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