Referred Complaints
Citizen Complaint Authority is an independent civilian oversight agency. The department investigates allegations of discharging of firearms, deaths in custody, uses of excessive force, discrimination, improper pointing of firearms and improper searches and seizures against Cincinnati Police Officers.
All other complaints against Cincinnati Police Officers should be addressed directly to the Cincinnati Police Department. This includes allegations of discourtesy, lack of service, harassment or procedure violation. While we do not investigate these types of allegations, we can monitor them. Many of these types of complaints are handled through the Cincinnati Police Department's Citizen Complaint Resolution Process.
Citizen Complaint Resolution Process is a process where quality-of-service complaints and misconduct allegations are initiated by the citizen and reviewed and investigated by the Cincinnati Police Department at the district level. Your complaint will be assigned a unique identifier which will be provided to you. Remember to keep track of this number since it will be used to follow your complaint through the process. Each complaint should be resolved in writing.
Quality-of-service complaints will be assigned to a supervisor and investigated. Upon completion of the investigation you may be asked to attend a resolution meeting. The resolution meeting is an effort by you and police personnel to discuss and resolve the complaint.
Misconduct allegations will be assigned to an internal investigator and fully investigated. Upon completion of this investigation a report will be forwarded to the Police Chief for final disposition. Once the report is approved, you should be informed in writing of the outcome of the investigation of your complaint, including whether any non-disciplinary corrective action or disciplinary action was taken.
Citizen Complaint Authority does not participate in the Citizen Complaint Resolution Process. Citizen Complaint Authority only handles complaints involving the specific allegations as noted above. Citizen Complaint Authority investigations are independent of the Citizen Complaint Resolution Process.
To file a complaint for CCRP review, please visit the Cincinnati Police Department's website for more information. Police personnel at the front desk of each Cincinnati police district station are authorized to take complaints. A Cincinnati Police Department Citizen Complaint Form will be completed each time a complaint is filed.