Just as Cuyahoga County slashes key social services to close a growing budget gap, Sheriff Harold Pretel is asking to expand his controversial downtown patrol unit — a proposal that left the hosts of Today in Ohio bewildered.
The sheriff’s Community Support Unit — recently renamed from the Downtown Safety Patrol after public backlash —includes 10 deputies and one sergeant. Pretel now wants to grow that to 12 deputies and two sergeants, creating two squads to patrol seven days a week.
“It’s wild for the sheriff to bring this proposal to them,” said Leila Atassi on the Tuesday’s episode. “Not long ago, everyone was questioning whether this unit should even exist after those deadly chases downtown. For him to come back and say, ‘Let’s expand it’? It’s just incredible.”…