The Size Of A Closet In East Cleveland

Whether the $22 million verdict will hold up on appeal has yet to be seen. Whether it will be collected, in whatever amount is eventually determined, is a separate question. But what the cops in East Cleveland did to Arnold Black is as good a reason to bankrupt that cesspool in any event.

After leaving his mother’s house after dinner on April 28, 2012, Black was driving home through East Cleveland when he was tailed by Det. Randy Hicks who was driving an unmarked car, according to testimony.

The two exchanged glances and another officer, Jonathan O’Leary, pulled up behind him. O’Leary ordered Black out of the truck, handcuffed him and sat him on the hood.

Hicks tore apart the inside of Black’s green truck, including the door panels, searching for narcotics.

Scholars parse Supreme Court opinions for hidden meaning on the Fourth Amendment. Cops just rip apart green trucks because they want to. Fit that one into your law review article.

Hicks asked Black why he was driving through his city, then punched Black in the temple as O’Leary stood by, at one point reaching in to prop Black up as Hicks continued to deliver punches to his face.

“His city.” Sorry. Couldn’t resist.  Up to here, there’s nothing to see out of the ordinary, and it wouldn’t be worthy of note any more than mentioning that today is Friday.  But from the banal police interaction, it took a serious dive down the the toilet bowl.

The two policemen took Black back to the East Cleveland Police Headquarters and locked him in a storage closet with no food or water. Black said he urinated and defecated in lockers during his stay.

Black remained in the storage closet for four days. Four days. Since someone was likely to notice that a guy disappeared off the face of the earth, the cops came up with a scheme to cover themselves.

On his second day in the closet, an officer allowed Black to use his cellphone to call his girlfriend.

But when the girlfriend came to the police department and asked to see him, she was told he was “under investigation” and “you can’t see people that are under investigation.”

So they put her off from running to some other cops, maybe ones who weren’t familiar with the secondary use of closets, to report Black missing. And with the usual law enforcement aplomb, informed her of the rules, the ones they just made up, trusting that she wouldn’t be hiring a lawyer for arraignment, or even realize that people don’t disappear for four days before showing up in court.

But showing up in court was a problem after the closet. The cops figured out a way to fix that too. Times heals all wounds.

It was not until the following week that Black was taken to the Cuyahoga County Jail.

But still, Black looked like crap after his beating and the closet, hence the elimination of the word “all” above. And these resourceful cops jumped that hurdle too.

In lieu of a mugshot, which would have shown Black’s bloodied face, the police department fabricated an arrest report using the picture on his drivers license, according to DiCello.

It took a month for prosecutors to figure out that Black committed no crime and dismiss the charges, that the cops were filthy beyond belief and that East Cleveland really needed to get some liability insurance.

The cops were fired no longer work for the department.  Were they arrested, locked up, prosecuted, stuffed in a closet for, you know shits and giggles?  No mention of that. But what is noted is that East Cleveland didn’t get that liability insurance when it had the chance.

East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said Thursday that the city already filed an appeal of the $22 million verdict.

With East Cleveland teetering on financial default, DiCello said his client is in uncharted legal territory regarding the $22 million verdict, but believes he will be able to collect at least part of the $10 million in compensatory damages the jury awarded.

“We do believe we have an excellent claim for the $10 million,” DiCello said. Of the other $12 million in punitive damages, $11 million was found against Spotts himself, DiCello said.

Spotts is the East Cleveland police chief.  You know, the guy who is supposed to be responsible for not giving guns and shields to animals, for making sure his cops don’t violate the Constitution, arrest innocent people, rip apart green trucks for no reason, leave human beings in closets for four days without food and water, without a friggin’ toilet.

Whether Black gets the money awarded him isn’t “uncharted legal territory” at all.  There is a legal maxim, you can’t get blood from a stone (it sounds better in Latin). But the big question to be answered is how big a pay raise will bankrupt East Cleveland be able to pay Chief Spotts after it’s done paying out the pension benefits, accrued vacation and sick leave time, to Hicks and O’Leary?

2 thoughts on “The Size Of A Closet In East Cleveland

  1. wilbur

    So what happened to the book-in photo when he WAS taken to jail? Did they somehow get corrections not to take his picture? I don’t think so.

    There’s so many ineluctable facts missing from that news item, you wonder how it ever got published.

Comments are closed.