Kristina Sgueglia and Dana Ford, CNN, December 1, 2014

Officers involved in a 2012 shooting in Cleveland are suing the city and police officials, alleging racial discrimination.

They claim the defendants have a pattern of treating non-African American officers harsher than African American officers, when it comes to officer-involved shootings of African Americans. The plaintiffs in the federal suit are not African American.

The incident cited in the suit began when officers saw a car speeding and heard what they thought was a gunshot directed towards them.

It involved a nearly 25-minute chase and ended in a hail of 137 bullets, killing two people. Both were African American.

No weapon was ever found in the car.

In the wake of the shooting, the plaintiffs say they were placed on administrative leave for three days before reporting “to the gym” for a 45-day cooling off period.

Months later, most of them were permitted to return to full duty, but they were then ordered back on restrictive duty, in a move the lawsuit claims was “politically expedient.”

They remained on restrictive duty until June 2014 and so missed out on potential wages and chances to apply for promotions and transfers, according to the lawsuit.

The nine plaintiffs allege their treatment was because of their race.

{snip}