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WEBVTT KRIS: AND I’M KRIS KETZ. CLEVELAND POLICE ARE UNDERGOING AN INTERNAL INVESTIGATION LOOKING AT HOW THEIR OFFICERS RESPONDED TO A WOMAN CLAIMING THE FORMER CHIEFS STAR ASSAULTED HER. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER MATT FLENER HAS BEEN ON THIS STORY FROM THE START MATT, YOU JUST SPOKE WITH THE ONLY MAN PUT IN HANDCUFFS THAT NIGHT IN CLEVELAND. MATT: IT WASN’T KAREEM HUNT. WE GET IT, YOU’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT THE FORMER CHIEFS STAR. HE’S NO LONGER WITH THE TEA BUT ONE MAN TRYING TO HELP THAT NIGHT GOT PUT IN THE BACK OF A POLICE CAR. WE THINK THERE’S A LESSON WE CAN ALL LEARN. >> SO THIS GENTLEMEN IS TELLING ME NOT TO VIDEO TAPE IN HERE, I’M A GUEST IN THIS HOTEL AND A CRIME HAS HAPPENED. AN ASSAULT. MATT: DEREK SZETO SAYS HE PULLED OUT HIS CELL PHONE AND STARTED RECORDING. BECAUSE ABBY OTTINGER NEEDED HELP. >> IT FELT LIKE SOMETHING SKETCHY WAS GOING ON. >> I WAS ASSAULTED. AND, I NEED HELP. MATT: SURVEILLANCE VIDEO SHOWS WHAT OTTINGER TRIED TO TELL POLICE THAT NIGHT. >> KAREEM IS THE ONE WHO ASSAULTED ME. MATT: THAT SHE WAS HIT AND KICKED BY KAREEM HUNT. THAT SHE TRIED TO CALL 911 FROM THE FRONT DESK. BUT SHE SAYS A HOTEL WORKER REFUSED TO LET HER. SO SZETO STARTED RECORDING, WHEN HE SAYS HE NOTICED NO ONE FROM THE HOTEL HELPING. >> IT FELT LIKE WE WERE, IT WAS ALL GOING TO GET SWEPT UNDER THE RUG. MATT: POLICE EVENTUALLY SHOWED UP. THEY START INTERVIEWING WITNESSES. BUT WATCH A HOTEL SECURITY WORKER. >> THIS GENTLEMAN FILMED INSIDE OUR PROPERTY. IS THERE ANYWAY WE CAN HAVE HIM DELETE THAT FOOTAG BEFORE YOU GUYS LEAVE? BECAUSE HE DID NOT HAVE PERMISSION, WHATSOEVER. MATT: ONE MINUTE LATER? POLICE CONFRONT SZETO. >> LET ME SEE YOUR PHONE, BUDDY. >> WHY? >> BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT A BIGGER ISSUE THAN THEY DO. >> I HAVE EVIDENCE OF A CRIME. >> NO YOU DON’T. BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T EVEN THERE. ONLY THING YOU DID IS ILLEGALLY RECORD SOMEBODY. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THEIR PERMISSION TO RECORD. >> IT WAS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. I THOUGHT IT WAS ABUSIVE. MATT: FORMER FBI AGENT MICHAEL TABMAN SAYS SZETO HAD EVERY RIGHT TO RECORD IN THE HOTEL LOBB AND POLICE SHOULD HAVE NEVER PUT HIM IN HANDCUFFS AND TAKEN HIS PHONE. >> AS A GENERAL RULE, WHEN YOU’RE OUT IN PUBLIC, AND IT CAN BE A PUBLIC VENUE, IN A PRIVATE LOCATION OR A PRIVATE SPOT, LIKE A HOTEL, THERE IS NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY. THERE IS NO LAW THAT PROTECTS YOU FROM BEING FILMED. THE POLICE CANNOT STOP IT, AND THEY NEED TO KNOW THAT BECAUSE THEY OVERSTEPPED THEIR BOUNDS. >> I REALLY FELT INTIMIDATED. BUT I KNOW MY RIGHTS. IT’S MY PROPERTY, AND THEY CAN’T JUST TAKE IT. MATT: SZETO EVENTUALLY GOT HIS PHONE BACK ALONG WITH A TICKET FOR DISORDERLY CONDUCT. ALL, HE SAYS, FOR TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING. >> I WOULD HAVE NEVER GOTTEN INVOLVED, HAD THE HOTEL ALLOWED HER TO CALL THE POLICE. I JUST WANT PEOPLE TO BE HEL ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. MATT: A HOTEL SPOKESMAN SAYS HOTEL STAFF EXCEEDED STANDARDS OF PUTTING SAFETY AND SECURITY FIRST. THAT ANY ALLEGATION OTHERWISE IS FALSE KRIS: MATT, WHAT ABOUT POLICE ? STILL A LOT OF QUESTIONS HERE. MATT: CLEVELAND POLICE SAY THEY’VE STARTED AN INTERNAL INVESTIGATION. THERE’S A LOT TO QUESTION. WHY THEY SPENT 30 MINUTES WITH SZETO, BEFORE TAKING A STATE

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It took roughly 30 minutes for Cleveland police to respond to a downtown luxury hotel after a woman called 911 to report a man named “Kareem” had assaulted her.That 911 call came from Derek Szeto’s cell phone.Szeto had allowed 19-year-old Abby Ottinger to use his phone. He had just returned to the Metropolitan at the 9 Hotel a little before 3:45 a.m. in an Uber, when he noticed Ottinger near the hotel lobby.“This girl comes running up to me and it’s February in Cleveland,” Szeto said. “It’s snowing. She doesn’t have a jacket. She’s crying hysterically.” Szeto, a guest at the hotel, learned from Ottinger the hotel staff had refused to let her use their phone to report an assault.What happened next has prompted questions to hotel staff about their behavior during the incident. It also sparked an internal investigation by the Cleveland Division of Police after criticism of officers’ interactions with Szeto, Ottinger, her friend, and former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt and his friends. The Kansas City Chiefs dismissed Hunt from the team last week after surveillance video shows him shoving and kicking Ottinger on the 23rd floor of the hotel.While Szeto did not see that alleged assault, he did hear Ottinger’s cries for help downstairs.“I would have never gotten involved, had the hotel allowed her to call the police,” he said.HOTEL, POLICE TACTICS QUESTIONEDAfter Szeto allowed Ottinger to use his phone, the two started talking as they waited for police.“It felt like something sketchy was going on,” he said. “I felt that I needed to start recording evidence and documenting what was going on.”Szeto’s cell phone was recording video when two Cleveland Police Officers arrived at 4:16 a.m.He told the officers he was recording for his safety, and the safety of Ottinger and her friend. Police confirmed their body cameras were recording, too.“Apparently the hotel refused to let them use the phone,” he told the officers. “I let them use my phone.”Body camera video shows the officers split up to talk to Ottinger and Kareem Hunt’s friends. They started gathering details from the friends and a security guard, when about ten minutes later, the security guard returns to ask officers to deal with Szeto.CELL PHONE CONFISCATED“Is there any way we can have him delete that footage before you guys leave?” the security guard asks the officers. “Because he did not have permission, whatsoever.”The officers then leave Ottinger and Hunt’s friends to confront Szeto outside -- demanding his phone.“I have evidence of a crime,” Szeto told the officers. “No you don’t, because you weren’t even there,” one officer said. “Only thing you did is illegally record somebody. You have to have their permission to record.”Eventually, the officers place Szeto in handcuffs and put him in the back of a police car. It wasn’t until a sergeant showed up to the scene, the officers realize Szeto still had his phone on him, and they forcibly removed the phone from him, while Szeto verbally objected.“I really felt intimidated,” Szeto said in an interview with KMBC Thursday. “But I know my rights. It’s my property, and they can’t just take it.”Police eventually gave Szeto disorderly conduct ticket. He paid it, but not after serious thought -- because he firmly believes he is not guilty. “It crushed my soul to pay the ticket,” he said. Former FBI Agent Michael Tabman said the officers overstepped their authority seizing Szeto’s phone.“As a general rule, when you’re out in public and it can be a public venue, in a private location or a private spot, like a hotel, there is no expectation of privacy. There is no law that protects you from being filmed,” Tabman said. “The police cannot stop it, and they need to know that because they overstepped their bounds.”Meanwhile, the ACLU of Ohio issued this statement, Thursday, about police interaction with Szeto:“The right of individuals to record the police is a critical check and balance. It’s highly concerning that an individual’s phone would be confiscated, or a person arrested, simply because they were in the vicinity of an alleged crime and may have been recording the incident on their phone. Today the information contained on a person’s cellphone is of a highly personal nature. Looking through a person’s phone is likely just as intimate as exploring their home.”POLICE INTERNAL INVESTIGATION BEGINS, HOTEL ISSUES STATEMENTWednesday, Cleveland Police announced an internal investigation into the officers’ interactions during the Hunt assault investigation. That will include their interactions with Ottinger and Szeto.KMBC 9’s phone calls to Ottinger have gone unreturned. Meanwhile the hotel’s ownership group issued a statement about its staff interactions during the incident.“The actions of our team members throughout this and any evening emulated and exceeded our standards of putting safety and security first,” said Geis Hospitality Group COO and VP of Finance Tony Quintal. “Any allegation suggesting otherwise is either false or a skewed recapitulation of what transpired.”Szeto said he hopes the actions of everyone involved provide a “teachable moment.”“I just want people to be held accountable for their actions,” he said.If you have any more information about what transpired at the Metropolitan at the 9 Hotel in Cleveland during the Kareem Hunt assault investigation, email Investigative Reporter Matt Flener at mflener@hearst.com