Police in riot gear arrested more than a dozen people in Cleveland on Saturday night as peaceful protests turned unruly after the acquittal of a patrolman charged in the deaths of two unarmed suspects.

Demonstrations had been tense but calm in the hours after Judge John P O’Donnell found police officer Michael Brelo not guilty on two counts of voluntary manslaughter in connection with the deaths of two unarmed African Americans in November 2012. Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell were killed when officers fired 137 shots at their vehicle, after a 20-minute car chase.Brelo fired 49 times at the victims’ 1979 Chevy Malibu, including 15 shots while he was standing on its hood.

But the protests boiled over as the night wore on. Deputy police chief Wayne Drummond says the protesters were arrested for failing to disperse from an alley in the city’s Warehouse district on downtown’s west side.

Michael Brelo hugs his attorney, Patrick DAngelo, after his acquittal on Saturday. Photograph: Tony Dejak/AP

Dozens of officers and state highway patrol troopers lined the alley, with some protesters standing and arguing with police for several minutes.



Several other people were arrested downtown during protests, with police posting on Twitter shortly before 9.30pm on Saturday night that officers had made multiple arrests.

Anger over what many perceived as another case of police impunity involving deadly force used against African Americans was palpable. Some spectators at the courthouse shouted “No justice, no peace” when Judge O’Donnell announced his verdict on Saturday morning. However, weeks of preparation by the city appeared to have averted an outbreak of violence such as was witnessed in Baltimore and in Ferguson, Missouri, following the deaths of young black men at the hands of police.

A protester films riot police during protests in Cleveland. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

The atmosphere in the city was already tense. A week ago, supporters and family members of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was holding a toy gun when he was shot by a Cleveland police officer in November 2014, had planned a protest march for Saturday. They wanted to ask why the investigation into Tamir’s death had taken so long, and why the officer had not been charged.

The plan was to protest in front of Cuyahoga county prosecutor Tim McGinty’s house. Some expected confrontation: the neighborhood is very white and has many police officers among its residents. As the march began, a coffin was carried by a mostly African American crowd, who chanted: “No Justice, No Peace.”

But events took a strange turn. At the justice center downtown, Judge O’Donnell reached his verdict. In a city that had been waiting three weeks for a verdict and with protesters carrying a sign saying “Cage Killer Cops” marching through a neighborhood where many lawns sported signs saying “We Support Our Cleveland Police Officers”, you might have expected the lid to blow.

But it didn’t, in the prosecutor’s neighbourhood and elsewhere in the city, and according to most observers on Saturday it was unlikely that Cleveland would erupt into the kind of burning and looting that recently occurred in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after the deaths of young African American men at the hands of police.

At an afternoon press conference, the police chief, Calvin Williams, said: “The city will not tolerate any violence and destruction and people need to understand that.” But he added that protesters had been peaceful, and said police were “assisting them in expressing their first-amendment rights”.

One of the reasons for the calm was that the city’s leadership, Williams among them, had three weeks to prepare for O’Donnell’s verdict. But it was also because Cleveland residents on both sides of the issue have come to believe confrontation taken to excess will do no good.

Art McKoy, a radio host and African American community activist who was marching in the Tamir Rice protest, said: “The people who live in this neighborhood know what’s going on.

“Maybe they haven’t seen this same racist thing like this verdict so many times as I have, but I can tell they know there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Maybe that’s why you aren’t seeing the confrontation.”

Protesters march down a street in the West Park neighbourhood of Cleveland. Photograph: Daniel McGraw

Many of the residents in the prosecutors’ neighborhood, West Park, did not want to talk to the media. But Terri Brown, a marketing copywriter, summed it up this way: “Everyone has been peaceful, and it has been very controlled. We care about the city, and I think [the protesters] do too. I think everyone in this neighborhood respects the right to protest.”

Still, the authorities had prepared. Cleveland police Swat team members were called around 6pm on Friday and told they should come into work on Saturday at 8am, though they were not told why. The first Twitter postings that a verdict in the Brelo case might be coming didn’t appear until about 7.30am.



Judge O’Donnell and the city worked together on preparation for the verdict and its timing. Cleveland public schools ended classes for the summer on Friday and sources told the Guardian city leaders had expressed concern to O’Donnell that a verdict while school was in session might cause problems downtown.

City leadership also thought a verdict announced on the holiday weekend would push possible problems back a day. Many people would be traveling, while a 10am announcement in an empty downtown area was critical.

The people who live in this neighborhood know what’s going on. They know there is a problem that needs to be fixed Art McKoy

The way O’Donnell disclosed his verdict may also have eased tensions. He spent about an hour explaining his verdict, and used mannequins to explain the significance of each bullet. He also explained what legal criteria were needed to prove excessive force used by law enforcement, and how the prosecution had failed to do so.

He started his hour-long explanation of his reasoning with some philosophical statements. He cited Ferguson and Baltimore, saying that “people are mistrustful and fearful of police” in cities across America, and that “Cleveland is such a place”.

“The verdict should be no cause for civilized society to celebrate or riot,” he said.

O’Donnell, 50, is a Democrat not known for being extremely active in party politics. But he is known for being very meticulous on legal details. According to lawyers who have tried cases in front of him, he is more of an academic type of judge.

“Guessing and finding out beyond a reasonable doubt are not compatible,” O’Donnell said during his explanation of his verdict.

Another reason that Cleveland might not see civic unrest in response to the verdict, as Baltimore and Ferguson did, is that the city is very defensive about its image. Cleveland is still losing population and has one of the highest poverty rates in the country – 54% of children live under the poverty line – and one of the highest crime rates. Recent FBI figures ranked the city fifth in the country for violent crime.

But in recent years, Cleveland has tried to shed its Rust Belt job loss image and promote itself as a comeback city. So though vast parts of the city remain in dire distress, the city government likes to emphasize that the Republican party chose the city for its 2016 convention, that millennials are moving into apartments downtown, and that LeBron James came back to the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team.

On Saturday James, leading the Cavaliers in the NBA Eastern finals against the Atlanta Hawks, told reporters: “Violence is not the answer, and it’s all about trying to find a solution, for good or for bad.”

A mantra heard over and over again in Cleveland in recent years is “We’re not as bad as Detroit”; in recent weeks, Baltimore and Ferguson have been added to the list.

Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams speaks to the media as Mayor Frank Jackson looks on. Photograph: Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters

Mayor Frank Jackson expressed that attitude – that the nation would be judging Cleveland after the recent riots in Baltimore and Ferguson – on Saturday after the verdict. Jackson has engaged church pastors, community voices, business bosses, and educational leaders in the past few weeks, to get out in the community and encourage peaceful protests if need be but to also watch out for “outside agitators”.



“It is my expectation that we will show the nation that peaceful demonstration and dialogue is the right direction as we move forward as one Cleveland,” the mayor said. “We all understand and respect the fact that people have a right to protest and let their voice be heard.

“However, while we encourage and support peaceful protest, I want to make sure that those who are here that have a different agenda understand that actions that cross the line, whether by police officers or citizens, cannot and will not be tolerated.”