[Cleveland.com] CLEVELAND, Ohio – An incident Wednesday that interrupted a discussion between Cleveland City Council members and Public Safety Director Karrie Howard about crime issues drove home a point.As members of the council’s Public Safety Committee told Howard their residents wanted police to be more visible to deter crime, Councilman Joe Jones abruptly excused himself from the online meeting because he had heard gunfire outside of his ward office.
Jones, who represents Ward 1 in southeast Cleveland, said people were shooting at each other across Lee Road from his office building. Jones said he initially thought he was hearing firecrackers, but that he then realized it was gunshots.
“What the citizens are experiencing right now (watching the committee’s broadcast) is live crime TV,” Councilman Mike Polensek said. “That’s what we’re experiencing, what Councilman Jones is dealing with right now and what all of us are dealing with on a daily basis.”
Cleveland police confirmed there was a report of shots fired in that neighborhood shortly after 11 a.m.
The incident punctuated the conversation, during which Jones, Polensek, Brian Kazy and Kevin Bishop all raised concerns about how to get a lid on rising crime.