Tag Archives: Cleveland Police Department

Featured, Police Accountability, US

Supervisors In Charge Of Hiring Officer Who Shot Tamir Rice Disciplined

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The Cleveland Police Department has appeared to acknowledge that the hiring of Timothy Loehmann, the rookie officer who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a controversial officer-involved shooting last November, was not a fully informed decision as Loehmann’s questionable police background was never investigated by Cleveland Police Department supervisors.

The department found that Lt. Gail Bindel and Sgt. Edwin Santiago, the supervisors in charge of hiring Loehmann, had “failed to adequately supervise and review an applicant’s background investigation” in violation of police procedure. Bindel was suspended for two 16-hour days and Santiago was issued a written reprimand.

Before Loehmann was hired in Cleveland, he was an officer for a brief period of time at the Independence Police Department. A memorandum written by Independence Deputy Chief Jim Polak described issues with Loehmann which Polak determined to greatly impair Loehmann’s ability to remain a police officer, including “emotional perplexity” and “dismal” handgun performance during training.

[RELATED: Personnel Files Of Officer Who Shot Tamir Rice Reveal “Emotional Perplexity”, Inability To Handle Firearms]

In addition to mentioning that Loehmann fell asleep during his training on one occasion, Polak described an incident in which Loehmann apparently had an emotional breakdown during firearms training. “I was notified by FTO Sgt. Tinnirello,” Polak wrote, “of the following circumstances related to our recruit, Ptl. Loehmann. A written statement was included. On this date, during a state range qualification course Ptl. Loehmann was distracted and weepy. He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” According to the memo, Sgt. Tinnirello attempted to give Loehmann time to calm himself down, but “after some talking it was clear to Sgt. Tinnirello that the recruit was just not mentally prepared to be doing firearm training.”

“Sgt. Tinnirello continued to speak with Tim about his problems, and Ptl. Loehmann continued with his emotional meltdown to a point where Sgt. Tinnirello could not take him into the store, so they went to get something to eat and he continued to try and calm Ptl. Loehmann. Sgt. Tinnirello describes the recruit as being very downtrodden, melancholy with some light crying. Sgt. Tinnirello later found this emotional perplexity was due to a personal issue with Ptl. Loehmann’s on and off again girlfriend whom he was dealing with till 0400 hrs the night before.”

Polak noted that Loehmann was “not mature enough in his accepting of responsibility or his understanding in the severity of his loss of control on the range.”

Polak wrote that there were three additional incidents with Loehmann that “would not be considered major situations” individually, but “taken together they show a pattern of a lack of maturity, indiscretion and not following instructions.” The incidents involved Loehmann disobeying orders to keep his weapon properly secured in a locker at night; abandoning a segment of his orientation and lying about being instructed to leave the orientation; and removing his bulletproof vest during training because he was “too warm” despite orders to keep it on so he could become used to wearing it.

Polak recommended that Loehmann be released from the Independence Police Department, and wrote that he didn’t believe that “time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies.” Polak asserted that due to Loehmann’s “dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to manage this personal stress, I do not believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the maturity needed to work in our employment. Unfortunately in law enforcement there are times when instructions need be followed to the letter, and I am under the impression Ptl. Loehmann, under certain circumstances, will not react in the way instructed.”

Loehmann ended up resigning on his first day employed by the Independence Police Department in light of Polak’s  memo and recommendation. According to Cleveland.com, Loehmann was rejected by at least five other police departments before being hired in Cleveland, and investigators failed to check Loehmann’s Independence personnel file.

Bindel and Santiago have reportedly appealed the discipline measures. Loehmann is currently employed by the Cleveland Police Department on restricted duty. The investigation into Rice’s shooting death is expected to be completed sometime this year and will be presented to a grand jury to determine if Loehmann or his partner, Frank Garmback, will face criminal charges.

 

Civil Liberties, Government Accountability, Police Accountability, US

Cleveland Police Union Head Rebukes New Reform Measures: “It’s Going To Get Someone Killed”

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Cleveland, OH- Earlier this week, the city of Cleveland and the Justice Department established an agreement to make changes to the Cleveland Police Department, which will mandate several reforms to the department. The CPD has agreed to establish various committees, revise use-of-force policies, and improve training.

Within the agreement are reform measures that focus specifically on identifying levels of force used by police and requiring increased oversight of police use-of-force incidents via paper documentation and outside analysis.

Three levels of force used by police have been established:

  • Level 1 use of force is identified as actions expected to cause “transient pain and/or disorientation” such as bending a suspect’s fingers, according to Cleveland.com. It also includes unholstering and pointing a firearm, but not firing it. Level 1 use of force incidents require the officer to file a police report explaining the incident and why the officer felt the use of force was necessary.
  • Level 2 use of force is identified as actions that cause “an injury, could reasonably be expected to cause an injury, or results in a complaint of an injury, but does not rise to the level of a Level 3 use of force,” such as use of an ECW (also referred to as a Taser); use of pepper spray; kicking, striking and punching; and using a police canine to accost a suspect. Any use of Level 2 force on a handcuffed suspect becomes a level 3 use of force. Level 2 use of force incidents require the immediate arrival of a supervisor to the scene of the incident, who are then tasked with interviewing the injured individual, seeing that proper medical care is administered, and writing a report to be reviewed by the district commander, Internal Affairs Unit and the police chief to decide if the use of force is justified.
  • Level 3 use of force is identified as actions including “uses of lethal force; uses of force resulting in death or serious physical injury; uses of force resulting in
    hospital admission; all neck holds; uses of force resulting in a loss of
    consciousness; canine bites; more than three applications of an ECW
    on an individual during a single interaction, regardless of the mode or duration
    of the application, and regardless of whether the applications are by the same
    or different officers; or an ECW application for longer than 15 seconds,
    whether continuous or consecutive.” All cases of Level 3 use of force are subject to the invesigation of a new branch of the Internal Affairs Unit called the Force Investigation Team(FIT), which is tasked with arriving to the scene to complete a criminal investigation. The FIT will be “comprised of personnel from various units and will not be a new unit.”

Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association, takes issue with the documentation aspect of the reform agreement, claiming that the requirement is “going to get somebody killed.”

“I’m afraid that officers are going to be hesitant to pull their gun in an appropriate situation because they don’t want to do the paperwork that’s going to be associated with having to pull your gun,” he said.

According to Cleveland.com, Loomis believes the reforms are not necessarily tailored to Cleveland officers, but are a response to increased coverage of police use of force incidents that have occurred nationwide. “This is a political agenda,” Loomis said. “This has nothing to do with the actions of the men and women of the Cleveland police department.”

Sarah Childress, a reporter for PBS’s Frontline, notes that this is Cleveland’s second attempt at reforming their police department. “Over the last two decades, Cleveland’s police department is one of only five law enforcement agencies that has been subject to two separate federal investigations, underscoring how entrenched the city’s problems have become,” she wrote.

The Justice Department investigated the CPD in 1999 and had identified problems regarding properly addressing use of force incidents and examining its own officers. In 2014, the Justice Department published another investigation of the department and concluded that the CPD was engaging in a “pattern or practice of the use of excessive force” in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Police State, US

Lawsuit Response: City Claims Tamir Rice’s Death Was Caused By His Own Actions

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Cleveland, OH- The city of Cleveland, in response to the 71-page lawsuit filed by the family of Tamir Rice on January 30th, has claimed that the death of Tamir Rice and the subsequent injuries suffered by his family were “directly and proximately caused by the acts of Plaintiffs’ decedent.” Among the city’s 20 defenses in its answer to the family’s civil complaint was the assertion that the 12-year-old’s death was “caused by the failure of Plaintiffs’ decedent to exercise due care to avoid injury.”

In Cleveland’s answer to the complaint, it was noted that the city was unable to respond in full due to the ongoing police investigation into the incident. The investigation is currently being conducted by the Cuyahoga County sheriff’s office, and it’s unknown when that investigation will be completed.

Tamir was shot and killed by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann last November after a person dialed 911 reporting somebody with a “probably fake” gun. Tamir had a pellet gun in his possession. Surveillance video surfaced soon after the shooting, showing that Tamir was shot within two seconds of the arrival of Loehmann and his partner, Frank Garmback.

The family of Tamir Rice had originally filed a lawsuit in December 2014, but filed a larger amended lawsuit a month later after new details had emerged. The lawsuit made references to a Justice Department report of the Cleveland Police Department, released on December 4th, 2014, that had concluded that the agency believed the CPD “engages in a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” Also in the amended lawsuit was the aftermath of the shooting of Tamir when his 14-year-old sister, Tajai, was tackled and thrown to the ground by police before being handcuffed and placed in a cruiser ten feet away from her dying brother.

The Rice family’s suit also included information about Loehmann, the officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice. Before joining the CPD, Loehmann was employed by the Independence Police Department, and personnel files from his time there revealed that he had been recommended to be released from the department due to documented “emotional perplexity” and an inability to properly handle firearms. During Loehmann’s firearm training he was found to be “distracted and weepy” and “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” Loehmann was described as “not mature enough in his accepting of responsibility or his understanding in the severity of his loss of control on the range” and his superior felt that further training would not correct his behavior. Cleveland police admitted that they never saw the files before hiring Loehmann.

Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis described Tamir Rice last week as “menacing” and has defended Officers Loehmann and Garmback while dismissing the media’s scrutiny of Loehmann’s personnel file as a “sideshow”. “There’s this perception that police just slid up in the car and shot him. That’s not reality from the officers’ perception. They acted based on what they knew at the time,” Loomis said regarding the officers’ actions.

“Tamir Rice is in the wrong,” he said. “He’s menacing. He’s 5-feet-7, 191 pounds. He wasn’t that little kid you’re seeing in pictures. He’s a 12-year-old in an adult body. Tamir looks to his left and sees a police car. He puts his gun in his waistband. Those people- 99 percent of the time those people run away from us. We don’t want him running into the rec center. That could be a whole other set of really bad events. They’re trying to flush him into the field. Frank [the driver] is expecting the kid to run. The circumstances are so fluid and unique.”

Walter Madison, an attorney for the Rice family, said that the city’s response to the lawsuit is “incredulous at best. It’s unbelievable.”

“What the city officials have done for a 12-year-old is set a new standard for children in their response, and all of that assumes that they’re not responsible for hiring this guy who was emotionally unfit to be a police officer,” Madison said.

 

More information about the shooting of Tamir Rice is available here.

Police Accountability, Politics, US

Cleveland Police Union President Argues Against City’s New Body Cameras

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Cleveland, OH- Steve Loomis, who was recently elected President of the Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association after losing the position in 2011, publicly criticized body cameras that the city’s police officers have been assigned to wear this year.

“It’s going to create more controversy than it’s going to solve,” Loomis told Cleveland’s News Channel 5. Loomis believes that video quality of the body cameras will be poor. “What they see on the video is going to be subjective, it’s not going to be clear video,” Loomis said. “The video in times of aggressive police work is terrible.”

According to WCBE.org, Loomis also argued that body cameras are unconstitutional. “You don’t think, in this day and age, and in the situation that we’re in here, that there’s a lot better ways to spend that money? And the video is not going to be conclusive in most cases, and it’s gonna actually cause more harm than good. And then there’s constitutional issues. You know, I don’t have the right to come into your house and videotape your house, that’s a public record. Imagine Tamir Rice – and those officers had body cameras on – and that happened so quickly, that that rookie officer forgot to push that button on that camera. Imagine that, what the outcry would be. Put the cameras in the cars, and let’s see how that works.”

Cleveland city councilman Steve Zone countered that “Any bit of information that you can get is good, regardless of what the quality of the video is.” The Cleveland City Council approved a bill last year authorizing the Cleveland Police Department to buy 1,500 body cameras for $2.4 million. Zone said that money for two thirds of the cameras has been allocated, with the remainder of the money coming from a recently passed $100 million bond issue.

Loomis told News Channel 5 he would rather see money spent on more cameras in police cruisers to offer a “wider perspective” of police situations, as well as microphones for officers to wear. Cleveland’s officers are expected to begin wearing the body cameras at the end of this month.

Police State, Politics, US

Personnel Files Of Officer Who Shot Tamir Rice Reveal “Emotional Perplexity”, Inability To Handle Firearms

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Cleveland, OH-  Personnel files of Cleveland Officer Tim Loehmann released by Cleveland.com revealed that Loehmann displayed serious problems with handgun training stemming from emotional issues.

Loehmann’s personal and professional history is under scrutiny following the tragic November 22nd incident in which Loehmann shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice after a 911 call reported a person with a gun that was “probably fake”. Surveillance footage of the shooting showed that Loehmann shot Rice within seconds of approaching him in a cruiser, contradicting a statement from Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba who said officers gave Tamir three orders to “show your hands”.

Before joining the Cleveland Police Department, Loehmann was a patrol officer working for the Independence Police Department. A memorandum, written by Independence Deputy Chief Jim Polak, expressed concern over Loehmann’s emotional issues during his poor performance at a state range qualification course for handgun training. Polak wrote that he was notified of Loehmann’s emotional issues by Independence Police Sgt. Greg Tinnirello:

[pull_quote_center]”I was notified by FTO Sgt. Tinnirello of the following circumstances related to our recruit, Ptl. Loehmann. A written statement was included. On this date, during a state range qualification course Ptl. Loehmann was distracted and weepy. He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal. Sgt. Tinnirello tried to work through this with Ptl. Loehmann by giving him some time. But, after some talking it was clear to Sgt. Tinnirello that the recruit was just not mentally prepared to be doing firearm training.”[/pull_quote_center]

According to the memorandum, Tinnirello and Loehmann then went for a drive to discuss the incident at the shooting range. During this drive, “Sgt. Tinnirello continued to speak with Tim about his problems, and Ptl. Loehmann continued with his emotional meltdown to a point where Sgt. Tinnirello could not take him into the store, so they went to get something to eat and he continued to try and calm Ptl. Loehmann,” Polak wrote. “Sgt. Tinnirello describes the recruit as being very downtrodden, melancholy with some light crying. Sgt. Tinnirello later found this emotional perplexity was due to a personal issue with Ptl. Loehmann’s on and off again girlfriend whom he was dealing with till 0400 hrs the night before.”

Polak added that Loehmann was “not mature enough in his accepting of responsibility or his understanding in the severity of his loss of control on the range.”

The memorandum noted that Loehmann appeared to display lack of loyalty with IPD. “He [Loehmann] keeps referring to being told to stay in Independence, although it appears he often thinks of going to NY, where his best friend lives, and he has opportunities to work for NYPD,” Polak wrote. “He told me that he was called by NYPD, and although he declined their position, he was told he would be on their list for 2 more years. That theme was repeated many times by Ptl. Loehmann, even him stating, ‘I will work here as long as possible; and do my best, but if I find I don’t like it then I will go do something else.’ I found this lack of commitment to us, disturbing.”

Polak concluded that “due to this dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to manage this personal stress, I do not believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the maturity needed to work in our employment. Unfortunately in law enforcement there are times when instructions need be followed to the letter, and I am under the impression Ptl. Loehmann, under certain circumstances, will not react in the way instructed. Ptl. Loehmann’s lack of commitment for his future here at Independence is disconcerting.” Polak recommended that Loehmann be released from the department and wrote that neither “time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies.”

Loehmann chose to resign ahead of being released by IPD. Loehmann joined the Cleveland Police Department in March. Cleveland police spokesman Sgt. Ali Pillow acknowledged that Cleveland police never saw the the personnel files criticizing Loehmann and recommending his departure from IPD before hiring him. Cleveland police had inquired IPD’s human resources department about any disciplinary measures taken against Loehmann during his time there, and IPD informed them that there were none.

CBS reports that Loehmann has returned to work but is not on patrol while an investigation is underway.