CLEVELAND — For Cleveland’s maligned police department, the barrage began with a car chase that ended when officers fired 137 rounds and killed two unarmed black people.

Then late last year, a white, rookie police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old black boy carrying a pellet gun in a park. Around the same time, a U.S. Justice Department report slammed the entire department, outlining a string of excessive force and civil rights violations.

Somehow, despite the repeated stains, Cleveland has been spared from violent protests that have erupted in places like Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

Cleveland’s politicians and community leaders are now working to make sure protests remain peaceful as the city awaits a verdict in the trial of a white officer in the deaths of the two unarmed people and a decision on whether charges will be filed in the 12-year-old’s death.

There’s nothing at this point that indicates there’s a caldron of dissent in the predominantly black, largely poor city that’s about to boil over into violence. Cleveland and the region’s biggest concern at the moment appear to be a hoped-for march by the Cleveland Cavaliers to an NBA title.

“I think the mayor’s been very clear. We’re interested in making sure that those who want to protest for whatever reason do it in a responsible way,” said Dan Williams, spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson. “We’ve had demonstrators them for a long time and we’ve been fair in dealing with them.”

What has helped ease the tension so far is Cleveland’s long history of electing black leaders along with a strong network of seasoned activists and clergy in the black community, said Ronnie Dunn, an urban affairs professor at Cleveland State University.

Cleveland has had three black mayors.