New fallout from mystery of cars left in Cuyahoga River: I-Team

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New fallout from mystery of cars left in Cuyahoga River: I-Team

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(WJW) – The

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has found new fallout from our investigation into SUVs in the Cuyahoga River.

Earlier, we reported that Cleveland police had known about the vehicles, but they were not pulled out for months.

That led to hard questions for the police chief at the most recent city council public safety meeting.

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“Why did it take the city so long to respond?” Councilman Michael Polensek asked more than once.

“When we talked about the timeline to remove the vehicles, that goes to show how long the process takes,” Chief Dorothy Todd said.

“But why? But why?” the councilman asked.

”Because you have to have the qualified people to pull those vehicles,” the chief said.

In October, dive teams helped pull two SUVs out of the Cuyahoga River, and police called that a training exercise for the dive teams.

But, we obtained text messages, emails, and reports from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). They showed police had known about the vehicles for five months.

While Police called the recovery simply a training exercise, an ODNR email shows, “these vehicles have gained the interest of Cleveland ***, and they want them removed.”

The I-Team also reported police have been told of two more cars still in the river.

“Someone’s going to have to tell me what the game plan is to get the rest of the vehicles out of the river,” Polensek said.

The I-Team has filed a records request to find out more about what police were told and when about the other vehicles in the river. We plan to report those findings when we get them.

But, at that council hearing, police showed no urgency to have those other vehicles pulled out.

“The information we have is they’ve been there for several years,” the chief said. “So, we have no information that leads us…they were connected to any crime.”

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“The only thing I can say with the other vehicles in the river, somebody better hope there’s nobody in them,” the councilman said.

As for the SUVs pulled out last October, no one was found in them, but police say both vehicles were tied to crimes. Both had been stolen.

Investigators found one also had been tied to a shooting.

Council members were not satisfied with the process. Instead, they suggested the city hire a company if needed to get vehicles out of the water.

“You have to look at it from the standpoint of a citizen. It looks like we’re not doing what we need to do to safeguard our citizenry,” Polensek said.

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