CLEVELAND — A day after his conversation with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, 3News anchor and managing editor Russ Mitchell sat with the city's new police chief Wayne Drummond for a one-on-one interview on Thursday.
Dornat A. “Wayne” Drummond was tapped as Cleveland's interim police chief in December, replacing the retiring Calvin Williams. Last month, Bibb removed the interim tag and named Drummond as the city's police chief going forward.
Cleveland recently went over 100 homicides for the year. Despite that, Drummond remains confident that with the public's assistance, his department will continue to grow in a positive direction. "Give us the opportunity," when asked by Mitchell what he might say to detractors. "Also, please get involved because it's important that we're all in it together. We can't do it by ourselves."
Drummond believes that the relationship between police and the community has improved. "Uses of force are down, complaints are down, and officers are engaging in de-escalation, so we're not seeing as many physical confrontations," he said.
The 33-year veteran of the Cleveland Division of Police was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Drummond graduated from the University of Toledo as well as from the FBI's National Academy. During his tenure in Cleveland, he has served in various capacities including strike force detective, case preparation officer and equal employment officer. He was named deputy chief in 2014.
Drummond is Cleveland's 41st police chief. He will be the first to deal with the city's community police commission after the passage of Issue 24 last year. The commission will be empowered to oversee police policies and discipline.
"My responsibility as the new chief of police is to make sure that partnership (between police and the commission) happens, that there's collaboration, and to show them that we're a decent police department. We hold people accountable. But also, when officers do the right things, we should commend them and support them," Drummond said about how he views his relationship with the commission.
You can watch the entire interview between Russ Mitchell and Chief Drummond in the player below:
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