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CLEVELAND, Ohio –Six majority WhiteCleveland police officers have been suspended without pay for purportedly breaking departmental rules pertaining to a use of force incident, the city's Black safety director has announced in a news release, disciplinary action that has the police union leader of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association upset.
Safety Director Karrie Howard said in the press release that the suspended officers are Lt. Brian Chetnik, Det. Andrew Hayduk, Patrol Officer Antonio Muniz, Patrol Officer Allen Nagy, Patrol Officer Rashawn Rahim and Patrol Officer Darryl Turner.
Howard said the suspensions stem from the officers' roles relative to excessive force findings against since fired patrol officer John Petkac, who was dismissed from his job on Dec. 21 for three acts of alleged excessive force, including a November 2018 incident in which the six officers at issue are accused of overlooking and not properly reporting, a violation of the collective bargaining agreement in the least.
According to Howard, the suspensions are from 13 to 131 days for failure to intervene, inefficiency in reporting, and improper use of body cameras
The safety director did not elaborate on specific facts around the excessive force, and did not name the victim.
While Cleveland police suspensions and firings occur, they are rare when the incidents pertain to excessive force, partly because of liability issues and expensive wrongful death and negligence lawsuits the city seeks to avoid, or at least minimize. CPPA President Jeff Folmer said the six officers are grieving the suspensions through the collective bargaining grievance process and that the union is behind them wholeheartedly.
Led by Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor who is currently serving a fourth term, the largely Black major American city of Cleveland is still recovering from riots that broke out in downtown Cleveland during a May 30 protest for justice for George Floyd, more than 100 people arrested in connection with the protest on charges ranging from resisting arrest to aggravated rioting.
Neither Jackson nor Police Chief Calvin Williams, who is Black like Jackson and Howard, has said much publicly as to controversial suspensions without pay of the six cops
The city and the U.S. Department of Justice remain parties to a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms instituted in 2015 following several high-profile Cleveland police killings between 2012-2014
Those celebrated police killings of Blacks include Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012, both of them unarmed and gunned down by 13 non- Black cops shooting a combined 137 bullets at them, 12-year-old Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson in 2014, and Brandon Jones and rapper Kenneth Smith.
Officers in those killings have largely avoided discipline or criminal charges, though the city has settled several wrongful death lawsuits, including a $6 million settlement to the family of Rice in 2016.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
