Cleveland Police Training on New Use-Of-Force Policies Delayed

Cleveland police will not be fully trained on its new use-of-force policies until well into 2017, pushing back plans that said all officers would be trained by the end of this year, reports Cleveland.com .

Under a new schedule submitted to the federal judge overseeing a reform agreement the city reached with the U.S. Justice Department, all officers will now be trained by March 31.

Several things factored into the delay, but the biggest is that the new policies have yet to be completed. Monitor Matthew Barge said his team, the city, and the Justice Department are still working to incorporate feedback they received from the public and other groups to improve the department's use-of-force policies.

The policies are expected to be completed and submitted to a judge in the coming weeks, Barge said.

The delay was revealed in a schedule the monitoring team filed Tuesday outlining benchmarks the city is expected to complete in the coming months in its efforts to reform its police department.

"Everybody I think agreed that that training needs to be comprehensive and needs to be done right, and there's really no sense in sending officers to a half-baked training," Barge said.