Parma Heights carries about 600 active warrants, but that figure includes those wanted for failing to pay city income tax, according to Capt. Bench warrants come from the courts, when a defendant fails to abide by a judge's order or violates probation. A smaller number of warrants seek someone who has not been arrested for a crime, but is wanted for questioning. Police investigating a robbery or other serious crime sometimes develop a suspect based on evidence and issue a warrant for that person's arrest. Nearly all of the warrants held by southwestern suburban departments are for misdemeanors, which can range from traffic offenses to simple assault to theft.
Suburbs carry few, if any, felony warrants.
Parma currently has 30, while Brook Park has eight and Strongsville one. That is because prosecutors typically present felony cases to a grand jury, taking the case out of the suburb's jurisdiction and putting it in the lap of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department, which is responsible for bringing in people under indictment throughout the county. The sheriff's wanted list now hovers at 12,000. The vast majority of those come from Cleveland, although suburbs also contribute cases. But all city police departments see their responsibility end once the grand jury indicts.