CLEVELAND — A new independent analysis commissioned by the city of Cleveland found no evidence of systemic racial bias in police searches, according to preliminary findings released Thursday.

The report, conducted by Harvard economist Dr. Roland G. Fryer and his firm Sigma Squared, comes one year after the city's own internal review revealed stark racial disparities in traffic stops, searches, and arrests.

In 2022, Cleveland police conducted 16,463 traffic stops. Of those, 51% involved Black males, compared to 7% white males and 9% Hispanic males — numbers that raised concerns among community members and city leaders.

But Fryer says the latest data tells a different story.

"We not only tried to understand disparities in traffic stops, which lots of folks in Cleveland have reported on

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