LORAIN — The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its investigation into
allegations of excessive force and sexual abuse by members of the Lorain Police
Department, concluding that while those issues existed in the past, there is no
longer a pattern of such misconduct by officers.
“During our investigation, we found that there were instances of excessive
force in the years preceding our investigation, along with allegations of
sexual misconduct,” Jonathan Smith, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil
Rights Division, wrote. “LPD’s management did not adequately address this
misconduct, and failures in LPD’s accountability and discipline systems may
have allowed the use of excessive force and sexual misconduct to continue.”
Read the complete reports below.
The Justice Department offered up a 30-page technical assistance report
that recommends sweeping changes to the Police Department’s policies and
procedures governing use of force, complaints about officers and how internal
investigations are handled.
The report also recommends the city “investigate and remedy command
deficiencies that permitted LPD’s past use of excessive force.”
With the release of the report, the Justice Department has concluded its
investigation and has no further plans to take action against the department.
Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said although the investigation, which was
launched in November 2008, pointed out numerous problems, the Justice
Department would have taken far more serious action if those issues persisted.
He said he still has faith in the Police Department’s officers and leadership.
“It removes a black cloud that was hanging over the department and the
city,” Ritenauer said.
Although the Justice Department has never commented on what sparked the
investigation, it is widely believed to have been the result of complaints forwarded
to Washington by Lorain City Councilwoman Anne Molnar and former Councilman
Mitch Fallis.
Molnar said that while she hasn’t read the report, she’s hopeful that the
recommendations will be followed by police and city officials.
“The general public should know about it, and I hope everything they put in
there will be rectified,” she said.
Sexual misconduct
Some of the harshest language in Smith’s letter deals with how Lorain
police handled allegations of sexual misconduct by its officers, and he wrote the
department needs to adapt a “zero-tolerance approach” to such behavior.
Smith wrote that “at best” the department demonstrated a “passive attitude
toward allegations of sexually assaultive behavior by its officers.”
“At worst, LPD’s failure to timely investigate and pursue prosecution
against the offenders demonstrates a double standard for conduct by LPD
officers that would not be tolerated from civilians, and permits LPD officers
to escape just prosecution,” Smith wrote.
The investigation concluded that there had been “credible” reports of
police officers committing sexual assaults while serving as officers. Some of
those allegations weren’t investigated until years later despite the fact that
Lorain police knew about them.
That is likely a reference to former Lorain police officers Jesus Sanchez
and Stanley Marrero.
Sanchez was convicted in 2009 of stalking a woman in 2001 and 2002, and the
city later paid the victim in that case $175,000.
Marrero was convicted of intimidation, dereliction of duty and public
indecency for exposing himself to a woman and asking her for oral sex. He also
threatened to withhold police protection from the woman if she told anyone
about what happened. Marrero also failed to break up a January 2007 fight
between two women with whom he was having affairs.
Marrero was later cleared of charges he raped a woman in 1993. Those
charges weren’t filed until 2008, although the victim testified that she tried
to tell police about her problems with Marrero when they happened.
She said at one point she called now-Police Chief Cel Rivera to report she
was being harassed by an officer. He asked which one, and said he would handle
it before hanging up, the woman testified, adding that she never had a chance
to tell Rivera she had been raped.
Rivera did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
Excessive force
Smith’s letter details similar problems of lack of oversight in how the
Lorain police handled excessive force accusations against officers.
“We found that LPD failed to investigate allegations of excessive force
adequately, failed to take disciplinary actions against officers involved, and,
in some instances, appears to have taken steps to conceal the use of excessive
force by LPD officers,” Smith wrote.
There were “numerous examples” of excessive force by Lorain police prior to
2008, Smith wrote, but he noted there no longer appears to be a pattern of
excessive force.
Still, he cautioned that there was “little evidence that steps had been
taken to prevent such violations from recurring.”
In the past, Smith wrote, officers have “too frequently utilized force in
response to minor violations of the law.”
He cited incidents in which officers have used Tasers against suspects when
police knew only “that the subject was fleeing for an unknown reason after a
minor infraction, such as walking in the roadway or jaywalking.”
Smith noted that, in one instance, an officer deployed a police dog to
pursue and eventually bite a person who fled from a car that was pulled over
“only for a window-tint violation.”
In another instance, a police dog was sent after a person who was “wanted
only for riding a bicycle without a light.” The dog only bit the person’s
clothing in that incident.
“Such use of force against individuals for minor infractions not only is
legally unsupported, but also could alienate LPD from the community,” Smith
wrote.
Smith also wrote that in some cases, the use of force, even if justified,
could have been avoided had officers used less confrontational tactics.
“There are a number of instances in which officers stopped individuals for
relatively minor offenses and took action (verbal or otherwise) that escalated
the situation to a use-of-force confrontation,” Smith wrote.
Improvements
The 30-page technical assistance report contains suggestions that Lorain
police could implement to prevent future problems. The suggestions range from
weighing pepper spray canisters to monitor how often officers are using them to
streamlining the department’s use-of-force policy, which is referred to by
Lorain police as “aggression response.”
“ ‘Aggression Response’ suggests that all uses of force by LPD are
responses to aggressive acts, but that may not always be the case,” according
to the report, which recommends using the phrase “use of force” instead.
Ritenauer said the Police Department has made numerous changes already to
its policies and procedures since the investigation began. Still, he said that
suggested policy improvements will be carefully considered.
One change centers on when non-lethal weaponry, such as Tasers and pepper
spray, should be used. Current policy allows those weapons to be used in
“passive-resistance situations.”
The current policy has led to “poor outcomes, namely, the abundant use of
(Tasers) to apprehend subjects for minor offenses when officers’ use of force
reports present no articulated threat to officers or others.”
The report also suggests that officers should begin writing use-of-force
reports for all instances that “go beyond un-resisted handcuffing,” including
whenever an officer draws and aims his firearm.
The Police Department also should increase the level of review for
use-of-force incidents, the report said, including conducting more thorough
investigations.
Another weakness within the Lorain Police Department, the report said, is
its complaint process, which currently requires all department employees to
assist residents in making complaints, but only supervisors are supposed to
hand out complaint packages. Complaint forms should be readily available,
including online, and easy to file, the report said.
The report noted that Justice Department officials heard numerous
allegations that residents had tried to complain about officers and that “LPD
failed to respond to such allegations,” leading to the officers committing
similar misconduct again. There were also accusations that police dispatchers
may have discouraged complaints against officers.
The department also shouldn’t discount anonymous complaints, the report
said.
“We recommend that LPD formally document, investigate, respond to, and
track all allegations of misconduct,” the report said.
Those complaints should also be tracked to allow the department to spot
trends, supervisors should routinely review officer files and the city’s
safety/service director and prosecutors should have more oversight of
misconduct allegations, according to the recommendations.
The Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office should also “consider occasional
audits of LPD’s misconduct investigations” to see if an allegation should be
prosecuted.
The department’s search-and-seizure policies, including those for street
stops, strip searches and body cavity searches, also need updating to provide
clear guidance to officers, the report said.
Origins
Lorain police Detective Buddy Sivert, a past union president now serving as
a trustee, said he hadn’t read the report Wednesday, but personally felt that
the end of the investigation is vindication for his fellow officers.
“I know nobody was doing anything improper, illegal or abusive,” he said.
“I know nobody was doing anything improper, illegal or abusive,” he said.
A lot has changed in police work over the past 20 years, Sivert said, and
he feels Lorain has a modern police department.
Sivert also said that while he would support suggested changes favored by
Rivera and other department brass, he still believes the investigation was
unwarranted and the Police Department was unfairly maligned.
City and police officials have previously said they believe the
investigation came about in part because of an investigation into former Lorain
police officer and convicted sex offender Joseph Montelon, who is suspected of
writing a string of anonymous anti-police letters to public officials and
journalists.
Police raided Montelon’s Wickliffe home in August 2008, although he has not
been charged with a crime. Federal officials are reviewing the propriety of
that raid.
Montelon also is suing the city and Rivera for allegedly violating his
constitutional rights. Rivera has filed a countersuit accusing Montelon of
defamation.