Three of Cleveland’s biggest hospital systems have their own internal police review boards, but for residents who file complaints the process can feel like a black box. The panels hear misconduct claims about hospital officers, yet decisions are typically made in private and hospitals share little information about how to file a complaint or what happens afterward. That lack of visible accountability has left complainants, community leaders and some elected officials wondering how much real oversight these boards actually provide.
Review boards exist, but the public rarely sees them work
Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and MetroHealth all run review boards that take up complaints about their police departments. Those panels meet behind closed doors and are staffed by hospital employees instead of independent civilians.
Signal Cleveland found that none of the hospitals clearly lays out how to file civilian review board complaints on their websites. Public records obtained by the outlet show the Clinic’s board logged about 25 complaints in the last five years, University Hospitals heard 26 in the last three years and MetroHealth 12 in the last two years, with about 14% of complaints sustained, substantiated or partially substantiated.
The reporting also notes that at least one complainant has taken a hospital arrest to civil court and that some people only learned a board had ruled on their case when reporters called to ask about the outcome.
Complainants say the follow-up never came
Several people whose complaints went before hospital panels told reporters they never received clear follow-up about what the boards decided. Marquis Wise filed a complaint after an encounter at Cleveland Clinic in September 2023, a case the clinic’s board later ruled “unfounded.” He told Signal Cleveland, “They said they’d get back with me. And I never heard nothing back from them.”…