CLEVELAND — Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is sending a message to judges as he addressed safety in the city: Keep repeat offenders off the streets.
“It’s a major problem. I can count on many hands how many instances where we’ve had judges be too loose and allow repeat offenders back on our streets,” he said during an event Tuesday morning.
Mayor Bibb said he’s had a conversation about this issue with the prosecutor and plans to talk with judges about this exact issue soon.
“We need real judicial accountability to keep our streets safe and secure,” Mayor Bibb continued. “Chief Drummond and Commander Tucker can be as aggressive as they can to put criminals in jail, but when those judges release them on our streets, it makes their job even harder – and that’s frankly unacceptable. We want to make sure we’re being aggressive on our part on law enforcement, but we need our judges and our prosecutors to work with local law enforcement. This is happening not just in Cleveland, it’s happening in New York, it’s happening in San Francisco, it’s happening all across this country. Judges have a role to play to keep our streets safe – and they must step up. They must step up.”
We streamed the entire reimagining downtown Cleveland press conference live, which you can watch in full below:
His comments came as he joined other local leaders to unveil plans to reimagine downtown Cleveland.
“Our administration is working around the clock to keep our city safe, but we can’t do it alone,” Mayor Bibb said. “We need residents to encourage folks to have their kids have a safe and productive summer. We want to encourage the public not to use guns to solve disputes. We also want to make sure we continue to send a message to Republican lawmakers in Columbus and Republican lawmakers in D.C., help us mayors all across Ohio and all across this nation pass commonsense gun legislation. Chief Wayne Drummond can only do so much. The men and women of our police department can only do so much. We need Congress to act. We need lawmakers in Congress to act and we need the public to help us keep our city safe and secure. We all – we all – have a role to play to keep our community safe.”
