Lakewood Sued For Civil Rights Violation

[Bridget Conant]

"Setup for a money grab??" I don't THINK so.

Remember a couple years ago when Chaz and Patty Geiger were arrested (false arrest) because a parking lot attendant downtown mistakenly identified Patty's car as a lawbreaker? And Cleveland cops came out to their house at night and put them both in jail? And the jail matron cut out Patty Geiger's laces on her nice loafers (reported in The Plain Dealer)? Well, Cleveland gave them a settlement of $69,000 (reported in the Plain Dealer) for the false arrest and jail.

This girl deserves a financial settlement from Lakewood for the abuse and injury. How do you apologize for breaking her jaw? How do you make up for the pain, the medical treatment, the time it takes for that to heal, not being able to eat, maybe not being able to go to her job, or whatever else she has to suffer through???

I wonder how many people said "they're just out for the money" when they sued. I mean, I'm sure the CPD apologized and disciplined the officers, right?

Funny, such a double standard.

[Bridget Conant]

Well at least Mayor Frank Jackson did the right thing and called to apologize to the Geigers for the incident:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.clevelan ... ger_of.amp

[Bridget Conant]

Going national.

https://reason.com/blog/2017/06/07/cop- ... aw-at-libr

Apparently local TV station WKYC was able to get public records and reported on Officer Jones' performance reviews:

The NBC affiliate in Cleveland WKYC obtained Jones' performance reports, which apparently say that Jones needed "little to no supervision" but needed "to continue to exercise patience with members of the public."

And a commentary on the culture of the LPD:

Permitting an officer who has been cautioned to exercise patience to work security in a place like a library, full of children, suggests a culture where performance problems aren't taken seriously. In such an environment, problems get worse.

[mjkuhns]

Going national.

https://reason.com/blog/2017/06/07/cop- ... aw-at-libr

I can pretty much guarantee that if journalists keep digging, they will find more complaints about Officer Jones. (Given that 1. I have come across multiple people saying that they have complaints, and 2. it would be astonishing if something like this came completely out of nowhere without any prelude.)

At risk of repeating myself: there are indeed people damaging public confidence in the LPD and our city, but they are Officer Jones, and those who want to shield him rather than hold him responsible for bad behavior.

This is what's hurting Lakewood, not people who point out that it's appalling that a Lakewood police officer couldn't handle the "problem" of a 17-year-old girl, who was to all appearances bothering absolutely no one besides him, without repeatedly using physical force and breaking her jaw in the process.

Has the city offered any kind of apology or attempt to make amends, at any point in seven months? If not, why not? And how much will it cost us, in both money and injury to the community's reputation?

[Mark Kindt]

I have some general observations about the City of Lakewood:

1. In order to obtain public records from the City, there is a high likelihood that any media organization will have to file suit to obtain them;

2. In order to obtain public records about improper hiring practices, there is actual recent evidence that such requests will be denied to media organizations or citizen-journalists;

3. If public officials are prepared to offer false testimony in the state court system, there is a high likelihood that media organizations will have a similar experience.

4. If public officials are prepared to censor on-line posts that raise questions about the performance of our public EMS services, there is a high likelihood that media organizations will have a similar experience.

The City of Lakewood needs to commit to honesty, accountability and transparency as core values. The City of Lakewood needs to adopt a strict code of government ethics.

[Mark Kindt]

As a point of clarification, I want to note that my comments relate to the City of Lakewood, and not Lakewood Public Library.

[scott gilman]

Mr. Kindt in a previous post you posted the following;

4." If public officials are prepared to censor on-line posts that raise questions about the performance of our public EMS services, there is a high likelihood that media organizations will have a similar experience."

So my question for you is if false information was posted on the Observation Deck and it was removed would that not also be censoring an on-line post?

[Jim O'Bryan]

Mr. Kindt in a previous post you posted the following;

4." If public officials are prepared to censor on-line posts that raise questions about the performance of our public EMS services, there is a high likelihood that media organizations will have a similar experience."

So my question for you is if false information was posted on the Observation Deck and it was removed would that not also be censoring an on-line post?

Chief Gilman.


The post would be corrected later, and a note put in the wrong post. There would not be editing unless in rarest of examples.

Someone emails me minutes after editing closed, on typos and such.

One of the problems with all other social media, people post crazy shit, and then later iut is swept under the rug, after who knows who reads it. The person of the falsehood, has no way of going back. This is why there is no deletions on the Deck. When you post, you own it.

My Mark Kindt is referring to, is a "City managed" site disguising as open, with city officials editing comments and posts they do not want out, or simply don;t agree with.

Even worse during City Hall work hours, and let's be honest City Hall has a real problem with getting City Hall administration to work on much more than covering things up.

That from a city refusing to turn over PUBLIC DOCUMENTS becomes troubling, wouldn't you agree?

.

[Mark Kindt]

Point 4 (above) is addressed to another post on the Observation Deck that seems to indicate that the City of Lakewood is insensitive to the First Amendment rights of those citizens who post on what I understand to be a city-managed or city-sponsored social media website.

The community-page post that I am referring to appears to have sought access to government contact information and appeared to be critical of City policy. A city-employee appears to have taken action to delete or limit the discussion.

This implicates core First Amendment constitutional issues.

It leads to the further question of whether or not the City of Lakewood has established policies (official or informal) that address the management and use of social media sites by city employees for public purposes that are consistent with both State and Federal free speech guarantees. To the extent such policies do not exist and city-employees continue to regulate citizen speech on social media sites, the City is once again setting itself up for expensive litigation.

As an attorney with 37 years of government and business practice, I remain deeply concerned about the governance of the City of Lakewood in the following areas:

1. Delay, obstruction and obfuscation in the release of public records;

2. The continuing lack of a set of comprehensive ethics-in-government policies;

3. The demonstrated willingness of city-employees or agents for the City to make false statements about the financial conditions of the City, some of which have been filed in state court.

I do not offer this criticism on a "willy-nilly" basis. If you take the time to read my December 2016 posts here related to "Civic Accountability--Honesty In Local Government" you will see that I have set-out a comprehensive analysis of many of the problems and I have provided actual public documents to support my analysis.

I applaud those individuals who have chosen careers in public service. Let us strive to ensure that each of those public servants has the professional and ethical tools that they need to do their jobs. From my careful perspective, some of this is currently missing in the City of Lakewood.

All I seek as a citizen is routine compliance with the law and ordinary compliance with common and long-understood principles of ethics in government by our appointed and elected public officials.

[Mark Kindt]

To directly respond to Chief Gilman's question to me.

The Observation Deck is not run by a public entity or edited by public employees and, therefore, does not implicate the State and Federal constitutional issues that I describe above.

My apologies to all for this thread-drift.

[Stan Austin]

Mark You ain't the thread drift. It's the "official response" that is the thread clueless.

[Bridget Conant]

It's rather amusing when city officials Come here to attack the Deck, andin the course of doing so, display their ignorance of First Amendment and free speech rights and issues.

The Deck is privately owned and operated. The owner or administrator has no obligation to provide a soap box for anyone. They may censor or delete posts at will. BUT THEY DO NOT.

Contrarily, a public entity or government run site has a legal obligation to honor First Amendment rights. We all know the "Lakewood Community Ohio" Facebook page was started and is administered by Jennifer Pae, a Lakewood City employee. It was started to mimic the Lakewood Ohio Facebook page where comments both pro- and anti- Summers are tolerated. The page that Pae controls deletes and censors any post evenly remotely critical of anything in the city, under the guise of being a "positive" page. In fact, the intent is to control the message - to manage the spin.

It is of great concern that a city managed site censors and removes posts it does not like. I've seen some of them and even mildly critical posts are axed. And again, the majority of participants have NO idea a city employee is responsible for that site and monitors and controls posts.

It's pretty sad that a private site allows free expression while a government one censors.

It's not American, is it?

[todd vainisi]

Nothing good comes of sparring/jarring/disobeying an officer of the law unless you are practicing non-violent civil disobedience, which she sure as hell wasn't.

Perhaps she WAS.

She was in a library, not on a bball court or in a protest crowd, or rioting. As far as I could see in the video, she did not appear threatening or out of control. She has every right to question the guard as to why she was asked to leave. This is still America.

Folks, I didn't grow up in Lakewood, but I did grow up in America. I can tell you that I got told to leave the library plenty of times as a teen, whether for socializing at a table instead of studying or skateboarding in the parking lot, or hanging around smoking cigarettes on the bench outside the library. It probably occurred to me to make a stand for my right to be disruptive at the library, but when told to leave, we left. Nobody needed to remove us. I don't think this cop handled things the right way, and I'm not sure what the right way would have been, but to suggest that teenager didn't do anything wrong or was non-violently protesting is a real laugh.

[Bridget Conant]

Some suggested reading for those who think the young woman bears some blame for the situation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ng/502661/

Did she not move quick enough when he ordered her to move her feet?

Did she dare say she had to call her mother when he ordered her out?

Did she dare ask why he was ordering her out?

Sorry, but NOTHING she did or didn't do justifies what he did and just because YOU think she shouldn't have questioned him has no bearing on this.

Neither does your experience as a young white suburban male twenty or more years ago bear upon her and her actions.

[todd vainisi]

Bridget, you can assume whatever you want about the situation (that she needed her mama's permission to leave the library, haha, well you never know). My only assumption is what was in the article. The department found that he was not wrong to remove her, that he removed her incorrectly. And that's where your assumptions reach the limit of their usefulness - the department didn't find that he was wrong to ask her to leave, that she should have not left till she called her mom, just that he should have called more officers to forcibly remove her without her hurting herself as she flailed.

You see, she shouldn't have needed to be removed. It's not the whiteness of my experience that makes me feel that the workers and adults in charge at the library need to be respected and obeyed. It's not the whiteness of my experience that disagrees with what the police officer did. It's not my individual experience that makes me proclaim that society is pushing us into more and more of these dangerous encounters by eroding the authority of the police.