White Cleveland Cops Attacked Latino Teen with Downs Syndrome. 5 yrs Later they Might Face Discipline
/
From [HERE] Two white Cleveland police officers, involved in an incident involving a Latino boy with disabilities six years ago, will face their superiors on December 16th in a pre-disciplinary hearing, according to the city of Cleveland. It comes as one of them has since been promoted within the department.
"The Ortiz family would like to see these officers terminated from the police force, not only because of the use of excessive force, not only because of the sheer stupidity in attacking a 16-year-old child with Down syndrome, but also because of the racist language, the racist behavior," said Subodh Chandra, an attorney representing Juan Ortiz and his family.
In 2010, officers Brian Kazimer and Dan Crisan were looking for a robbery suspect when they chased after Juan, handcuffed him and pinned him to a hot running car for 45 minutes, according to official documents. Juan was playing outside of his west side apartment building at the time.
"I kept hollering you got the wrong one, that's not right, he's not the one, but it still happened," said Nina Kennedy, a witness who also said the officers used explicit and racial language with Juan's parents.
"If you can't speak English here, take your ass back to where you come from," Kennedy added. "That's pretty much what they said. But they also used the "f" word."
Juan ended up in the hospital. He was never charged with any crime.
Three months after the incident, the Civilian Police Review Board ruled Kazimer and Crisan should be disciplined. But that never happened.
At the time, the city said administrative discipline could not take place at the same time as pending litigation.
The Ortiz family filed a civil lawsuit against the city and recently settled for $250,000.
During the litigation phase, an official performance evaluation for Crisan revealed he had been promoted to sergeant in 2015.
"There's no evidence that Crisan's conduct in this matter was taken into consideration where he was promoted to sergeant," said Chandra. "That would appear a violation of the consent decree."
According to the consent degree, between the city of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice, a superior considering the promotion of a Cleveland Police officer should consider factors like the officer's use of force, disciplinary record and any pending disciplinary process.
Crisan was promoted after the consent decree was filed. Kazimer remains on the force.
"The family is baffled," added Chandra. Unconfuser Neely Fuller explains "If you don't understand racism/white supremacy, everything else that you think you understand will only confuse you."
