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Cleveland Police Abuse Pattern Cited by Justice Department - New York Times




A protester in Washington with a picture of Tamir Rice, the young boy who was killed by a police officer in Cleveland on Nov. 22. The protest was in response to a grand jury's decision in Ferguson, Mo., not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press




CLEVELAND — One week after the release of a surveillance video showing a Cleveland police officer fatally shooting a 12-year-old African-American boy who was holding a pellet gun, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flew here on Thursday to announce that a lengthy Justice Department civil rights investigation had found “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force” by the city’s Police Department.


The Cleveland abuses highlighted by Mr. Holder included many that have caused friction with the police in minority communities around the country. Those include excessive use of deadly force like shootings and using weapons to hit suspects on the head; the “unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force” involving Tasers, chemical spray and fists; excessive force against mentally ill people; and tactics that have escalated encounters into confrontations where use of force became inevitable.



“Cleveland officers are not provided with adequate training, policy guidance, support and supervision,” the Justice Department concluded in its report.


As a result of the investigation, the city has agreed to work toward a settlement with the Justice Department known as a consent decree that will tighten and govern policies on use of force and subject the police to oversight by an independent monitor. Consent decrees in other cities, including Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans and Albuquerque, were put into effect after investigations into questionable police violence and other abusive practices.


“Accountability and legitimacy are essential for communities to trust their police departments, and for there to be genuine collaboration between police and the citizens they serve,” Mr. Holder said in a statement. “Although the issues in Cleveland are complex, and the problems longstanding, we have seen in city after city where we have been engaged that meaningful change is possible.”


While some police departments have resisted the Justice Department inquiries, Cleveland officials have generally supported the review amid concerns about high-profile police killings that have outraged the city’s majority black population and drawn criticism from police experts.


The Justice Department had been investigating the Cleveland police for nearly two years; the mayor, Frank G. Jackson, a Democrat, had asked the government to review the city’s policing policies following a controversial 2012 killing of two unarmed black people.


It was not immediately clear Thursday whether the Justice Department accelerated the release of the findings after the Nov. 22 police shooting death of the 12-year-old, Tamir Rice. Justice Department officials had been saying for weeks that the Cleveland inquiry was coming to a close. And on Thursday, Steven M. Dettelbach, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said the Justice Department’s review did not include the shooting of the boy.


Thursday’s announcement also comes less than two weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., in August. That decision set off a new wave of violent protests in and around Ferguson and prompted President Obama to convene a meeting on Monday with civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials about improving local policing in minority communities.


Citing a “simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color,” Mr. Obama announced after that meeting that he was forming a task for to study ways to improve local policing. He also said that he would provide money for police officers to wear body cameras that record their actions and that he would tighten standards on providing military-style equipment to local police departments.


The report’s release also came a day after a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the choking death of Eric Garner, an unarmed 43-year-old who was being arrested after, the police said, he sold loose cigarettes.


Tamir Rice was killed by a rookie Cleveland police officer who quit a suburban police force after his supervisors determined two years ago that he suffered a “dangerous loss of composure” during firearms training and was emotionally unprepared to cope with stresses of the job. The officer, Tim Loehmann, 26, shot the child within two seconds after his patrol car pulled up next to the boy.


The Cleveland police said the child, who had what turned out to be a replica gun that shoots small plastic pellets but looks like a semiautomatic pistol, was told to raise his hands, but instead reached to his waistband for the object. Surveillance video of the killing that was released last week showed, however, that the shooting happened so fast it was hard to know whether the officer issued any real warnings or whether the boy could have understood them if he did.


The Cleveland findings and the consent decrees with other cities have become a major part of the legacy of Mr. Holder, who is stepping down after serving as Mr. Obama’s only attorney general. Mr. Holder and other Justice Department officials are also holding a meeting in Cleveland on Thursday with local community and political leaders and officials from law enforcement in an effort to improve ties between the police and residents.


During Mr. Holder’s first five years in office, the Justice Department opened 20 civil rights investigations into police departments nationwide, more than twice the number of cases opened in the five years before.


But the recent string of high-profile abuse allegations has vaulted Mr. Holder into a position as a leading voice on an issue that has set off protests around the country. He spoke strongly against police use of military equipment against protesters, and his trip to Ferguson helped calm tensions in the days after the shooting of Mr. Brown, 18, who had scuffled with a police officer.


“Above all,” he said after his visit, “I wanted to make clear that, while so much else may be uncertain, this attorney general and this Department of Justice stand by their side.”


In Cleveland, the mayor’s call for a review of police policies came after the November 2012 police killing two African-Americans — a shooting that led the state’s attorney general, Mike DeWine, a Republican, to describe a “systemic failure in the Cleveland Police Department.”


That shooting happened after police apparently mistook backfire from a speeding Malibu for gunfire, and began a 20-mile chase that eventually grew to include 62 patrol cars, some traveling more than 100 miles an hour, and involved more than a third of the city’s on-duty police officers.


It ended when officers fired 137 rounds at close range at the car after it pulled into a middle school parking lot, riddling its occupants. There was no evidence either victim had a gun; this year, one officer was indicted on a charge of manslaughter in the shooting and five supervisors were charged with criminal dereliction of duty.


The Cleveland police said on Wednesday that they had never reviewed the previous police personnel file of Officer Loehmann during background checks before his hiring. Officer Loehmann had briefly served in nearby Independence, Ohio, but resigned after his bosses recommended that he be released two years ago, saying he was emotionally unsuited to handle the stress of the job. They cited an episode in which he became “distracted and weepy” during firearms training.


A starkly negative assessment by the city’s deputy police chief concluded that Officer Loehmann, who was suffering from problems with a girlfriend, “would not be able to substantially cope, or make good decisions, during or resulting from any other stressful situation.” He added, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies.”


Cleveland police officials said they would now request personnel files from previous employers. They also said that detectives doing background checks during Officer Loehmann’s hiring had interviewed a city official from Independence and asked about disciplinary or other issues they needed to be aware of, but that they had been told there were none.



Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Cleveland, and Matt Apuzzo from Washington.










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