CLEVELAND – A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service says a nationwide program that allows fugitives to safely surrender at churches has been eliminated.
More than 34,000 people in 19 cities have turned themselves in through Fugitive Safe Surrender, which got its start in Cleveland in 2005 when a marshal created the program in response to the killing of a police officer by a fugitive during a traffic stop.
Spokesman Jeff Carter tells The Plain Dealer of Cleveland for a Sunday story that the program cost $250,000 annually and didn't fit the service's mission of catching violent fugitives. He says the program was aimed at fugitives accused of nonviolent crimes. Funding was dropped earlier this year.
The program set a national record in Cleveland in September, when marshals said more than 7,400 fugitives surrendered.
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Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com