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Cleveland Police Department moving detectives to homicide unit

The Cleveland Police Department has had to deal with 74 homicides so far this year.

Cleveland — Jameela Hasan’s family is tired of Jameela being an unsolved murder statistic in Cleveland.

It's been almost six years since the 37-year-old was found dead on the east side and still no answers.

Photo of Jameela Hasan provided by the Hasan family

"She had been stabbed 11-15 times," mother Ayesha Hasan explains the news she got December 18, 2012.

"68 months," she says. That is by a mom's count who is still waiting for closure in a case that's gone cold.

"So as the weeks went on, then it was months, now it's been 5 1/2 years," Hasan says.

Hasan says the short version goes like this:

  • The first Cleveland homicide detective assigned to Jameela’s case retired.
  • The 2nd detective was reassigned.
  • Yet another detective was assigned in February.

Hasan says she gave the new detective on the case “2 pages full of questions."

"I didn't hear from him. I called in July found and found out in July he's retired. Now there's a new detective who has to talk to the retired detective," Hasan says.

Understandably for this mom, word of Cleveland Police beefing up the homicide unit sounded like an excellent idea.

"She (Jameela) doesn’t just exist in a file on someone’s desk. She was a person, a mom, an aunt, a daughter,” Hasan says.

The plan from CPD is to temporarily tap five "seasoned investigators" from other parts of the city to help out in homicide.

Essentially these "part time homicide investigators" will do critical, time-consuming work, laying a foundation for the current 13 homicide investigators.

“Conducting interviews, gathering video, evidence collecting, visiting families at the hospital and transporting evidence. That makes these seasoned investigators an additional resource that is invaluable," Deputy Chief Harold Pretel told Channel 3 News.

But the man who represents Cleveland police officers, CPPA union president Jeff Folmer, points out moving five investigators from the neighborhoods over to help with homicide is “hardly additional resources."

"Those investigators are taken from other districts that are already strapped. It's embarrassing. Manpower shortage has been an issue for years. We're talking years that it's been mismanaged and now they are trying to catch up," Folmer says.

"Open homicide review investigations", formerly called 'cold cases,' have a separate set of investigators that include a Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s deputy and an FBI agent.

"They have not reached out at all," Hasan says.

And the new help in homicide doesn't help families like the Hasans.

Pretel explains "As far as this, they (the added temporary investigators) are going to be for whatever comes in from here forward. The biggest value is going to be in new cases coming in."

CPD reports 74 homicides so far this year. That’s 74 more cases that the 13 homicide detectives would rather not have to dig out from either.

Like Ayesha Hasan, they have families with “moms, aunts, daughters."

By September, Pretel says the hope is to hire more full time homicide detectives. It will be however, “fewer than the 5 who are on temporary detail."

Recognizing the problem and making even a temporary move to bolster the homicide unit, even to the Hasans, is at least a step in the right direction.

"In my heart I say every day to her I'm not going to stop. Every day when I wake up she is the first thought on my mind," Ayesha says.

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