Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb names interim police chief Wayne Drummond permanent chief, Drummond Black and a 33- year veteran of the force.....By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor (To hire this political and investigative reporter (Coleman) call 216-659-0473 or email us at editor@clvelenadurbannews.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — During a press conference on Thursday, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, alongside Chief Director of Public Safety Karrie Howard, Council President Blaine Griffin, Ward 8 Councilman and Safety Committee Chair Mike Polensek, and faith and community leaders, announced the permanent appointment of interim chief Dornat "Wayne" A. Drummond as Cleveland's 41st chief of police.
The appointment comes as city lawyers have reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the Cleveland Police Patromen's Association and an affiliated raise for the police rank and file. At the time the deputy chief of police, Drummond stepped up as chief after former police chief Calvin Williams, whose tenure as police chief was steeped in controversy, retired last year.
Mayor Bibb has been in office since January and is the city's fourth Black mayor, behind his predecesor, Frank Jackson, a strong mayor like Bibb, though Jackson, who opted not to seek reelection last year after four terms as mayor, had an adverserial relstionship with the police union leadership team
Former police chief Calvin Williams is Black and so is Chief Drummond, Bibb, Griffin and Howard. And Cleveland, a Democratic stronghold, is roughly 60 percent Black with a population of some 372,000 people.
The mayor had said that a search would ensue for a permanent replacement for Williams, but he has since decided to promote from within. He said that Drummond is more than qualified to lead Cleveland's police department, the city still under a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms that was instituted with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 behind excessive force police killings of a string of Blacks since 2012.
"Sometimes you don't need to do a search to find your leader. Sometimes that leader finds you," said Mayor Bibb, 34, at Thursday's press conference. "Over the past six months as mayor, I have been consistently impressed with Chief Drummond's skills, dedication and genuine passion for the mission of protecting and serving the people of Cleveland. He has demonstrated from day one why he is the right leader to take our police department into the future."
The city's public safety director was as equally supportive.
"I am proud to continue working alongside Chief Wayne Drummond," said Chief Director of Public Safety Karrie D. Howard. "He has been a progressive, dynamic leader of the Cleveland Division of Police and is a true asset to the city."
Drummond said that he is ready for the job, a task that comes behind a wealth of discrepancies since he first became a cop in the late1980s. They include the police shooting death of Michael Pipkins in 1992 to that of so many more Black people thereafter, including the '137 shots' police shooting deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012, and that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, not to mention Brandon Jones, rapper Kenneth "Ball" Smith and so many others.
"When I started my career over 33 years ago as a first district patrol officer, I never envisioned that I would become a chief of police," Chief Drummond said. "Every experience I have had, from that day until today, has prepared me well for this opportunity."
In addition to a host of excessive force cases that brought large financial settlements from the city, including $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice, the city faced a riot in May of 2020 during a George Floyd protest in downtown Cleveland, and last November, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved Issue 24, a police reform initiative that gives the community more say relative to policing issues.
Drummond became a police officer in 1989 and was promoted to the rank of sergeant in 2000, and then to lieutenant in 2002, supervising units, including the fugitive unit. He also served as the division's public information officer.
In 2005, he was appointed to the rank of commander, overseeing the division's 5th district on the city's largely Black east side, which includes the Collinwood and Glenville neighborhoods. He was appointed to the rank of deputy chief of field operations in 2014, overseeing the five neighborhood districts, the Bureau of Traffic, the Bureau of Community Policing, and special events for the division.
"Over the years I have always appreciated how Chief Drummond, whom I met when he was Fifth District commander, spent time in the community," said longtime Cleveland resident Bill Newsome. "I was living in Glenville when he came on and he was always a presence. He didn't send someone; he came out himself and we felt a real connection with him."
Drummond was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica and grew up in the city's Fairfax Neighborhood. He attended the University of Toledo where he earned a bachelor's degree. He and his wife Trish, whom he has been married to for 27 years, have four children and three grandchildren.
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