With Gabriel Baird

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Six Cleveland police officers, all accused in recent months of using excessive force, have scuffled with at least 39 suspects since February 2009.

But, based on reports completed by the officers and reviewed by The Plain Dealer under the state's public-records law, few posed an imminent danger to the men and women in blue.

All but one were unarmed. And 14 of the 36 suspects whose cases are closed -- 39 percent -- were never convicted of any crime. Eight were never charged, other police and court records show.

Yet in every case they investigated, police supervisors at multiple levels, up to and including Chief Michael McGrath, deemed the more than three dozen uses of nondeadly force to be justified.

Additionally, city officials said that in most cases, those who investigate the incidents have access to only black-and-white pictures of the injuries suffered by officers and suspects. Police said they lack enough color ink and memory cards to preserve all original images.

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Six Cleveland police officers, 40 uses of force: a review by the numbers

The newspaper's findings, the latest in a series of articles examining police procedures, raise further questions about how stringently officers are held accountable for their actions.

Law enforcement experts interviewed for this story universally agreed that force is necessary to bring some suspects to justice. But they expressed concern about some of the cases involving the six officers, especially those in which the suspect was found to have committed no crime.

"If you have no prosecutions and convictions from these incidents, you have to ask: 'What is going on?' " said Samuel Walker, a retired criminal-justice professor from the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who has consulted with other police departments on use-of-force practices.

Just as concerning to some experts were the types of charges most frequently leveled against the suspects: failure to comply with police orders, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Six of the cases involved only these charges.

Paul McCauley, a former police officer and criminology professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who has testified on similar issues, said such charges suggest officers had no legal reason to detain the suspect.

"How can you resist arrest if there wasn't a reason for you to be arrested?" he said.

Officers Lyndsey Bissell and Adonna Perez are accused of assaulting a handcuffed inmate in December. They pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges in Cleveland Municipal Court.

Officers Paul Crawford, Martin Lentz, Christopher Randolph and Kevin Smith are accused of assaulting a man Jan. 1 after a high-speed car chase. Felony charges in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court were dropped when federal prosecutors took over the case, opening a civil rights investigation.

Bissell, Crawford and Perez each received layoff notices last week amid a round of budget cutbacks. Lentz, Randolph and Smith are on unpaid suspensions.

Suspects in 27 percent of the 22 incidents involving Smith, who reported more uses of force and made more arrests than the others, were ultimately found to have broken no laws. And three of the five suspects from Randolph's force-related arrests were never charged or convicted.

Randolph's lawyer said his client has no control over how the cases are resolved.

"Decisions requiring prosecution -- who is ultimately charged, how they're charged -- is a matter ultimately taken up by the city prosecutor," said attorney Mark Marein.

Sgt. Sammy Morris, who responded to questions on McGrath's behalf, said records he researched showed the six officers using nondeadly force on 34 suspects, not 39. But The Plain Dealer confirmed its number with documents the department provided.

Asked if the newspaper's findings raised questions about police practices, Morris replied: "We're always reviewing our policies, and when changes are needed, we implement them."

Cleveland police policy defines nondeadly force as "any significant physical contact" with a person. It can include actions as simple as grabbing or as serious as using a Taser or baton.

More about Cleveland officers facing force-related charges

Smith and Lentz were among the department's most frequent users of force between February 2009 and March 2011, The Plain Dealer reported in March, after analyzing city data.

At the time, officials had not provided copies of the special "Use of Non-Deadly Force" forms, known as UNDFs in police shorthand. The two-page forms track officers' reasons for responding to an incident, why they believed force was needed and what types of force were used.

For this story, reporters examined hundreds of paper and electronic records, including the UNDF forms, initial police reports and court records. Reporters also attempted to reach everyone on whom the officers reported using force, as well as witnesses, but many could not be located.

The newspaper, among other discoveries, found that:

* Half the assignments that led to force began with a police radio broadcast about a possible crime and 19 began after officers observed something they deemed suspicious. A few occurred while Smith was working off-duty security for a Warehouse District nightclub.

* Smith and Lentz were the only officers among the six to report incidents in which a suspect was struck, punched or kicked -- the most aggressive nondeadly force an officer can apply without a weapon or sleeper hold. Smith noted 11 such incidents, Lentz three.

* Tasers were used 17 times, and Smith once used a flashlight to strike a man outside a bar. In that case, Deputy Chief Hector Cuevas chastised the supervisor for failing to ensure that the man received medical attention, according to a UNDF form. Morris, the police spokesman, said the officers and supervisor were "counseled" afterward about proper policy.

* None of the officers resorted to the most serious force options, which besides sleeper holds include hitting a suspect in the head with a gun, using a baton or firing their weapons.

All six officers have been hired since 2008.

Smith was involved in more than half of the 40 nondeadly force incidents involving 39 suspects since then, records show. One of the suspects had force used on him twice.

Smith reported using force on 22 suspects, often while with Lentz or another officer. Lentz reported using force on 12, Randolph on five and Bissell, Crawford and Perez on three each. The numbers do not add up to 40 because some cases involved more than one of the officers.

Police officials and union leaders stress that those numbers represent less than 10 percent of the 540 arrests these six officers accounted for during that same period. But the number struck some experts as high.

Walker and others who study the subject said an officer's actual rate would vary based on where and when the officer works and how prevalent alcohol and drugs are in the area.

All six officers had been assigned to the city's 3rd District, which includes downtown and East Side neighborhoods such as Central, Fairfax, Hough and St. Clair-Superior.

At least twice, the officers applied a higher level of force than prescribed for the situation.

Last August, Lentz and Smith used a Taser to shock a man in the back after he had pulled away and tried to flee, according to the UNDF form submitted for the incident.

Because details in the related police report were so sparse, it is unclear whether the force was excessive, given the situation.

"Typically, using the Taser to shoot a person in the back for fleeing unarmed is unnecessary and excessive force," said McCauley, the Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor.

The Plain Dealer found more discrepancies among the police reports and the UNDF forms.

On the UNDF forms, officers said drugs were involved in 12 cases, alcohol in 26. But in at least three instances, the claims were not totally supported by the initial police reports.

For example, Smith checked the "drugs" box on a UNDF form he submitted in April 2009, after using his Taser on a suspect accused of fleeing and violently resisting arrest when officers approached him on a domestic violence call. The police report made no reference to drugs.

Such findings "raise a bunch of red flags," said Walker, the retired Nebraska professor.

"Are they adding material? Are they adding facts later that would justify what they did?"

Said Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor whose writings have included work for the National Institute of Justice: "That could be everything from sloppy paperwork to a coverup."

But supervisors rarely deviate from boilerplate language when blessing these uses of nondeadly force. All incidents involving the six officers, save for two that city officials said remained under review, were ruled "within divisional policy" and "necessary and proper" or justified with some variation of those words.

McGrath's signature appears on nearly every form, beneath a deputy chief's.

Other cases stand out among the 40 involving the six officers.

Experts interviewed by The Plain Dealer were distressed by the circumstances surrounding a May 2010 incident involving Officer Randolph that began with a brawl over a bar tab downtown.

Police said Gregory Wilczewski, 30, resisted their efforts to lead him to a jail cell and remove his handcuffs. They said Wilczewski slammed his face into a wall until blood poured from his nose and mouth. He swung his fists at officers and spit blood in Randolph's eye.

Needing medical attention himself, Randolph then took Wilczewski to the hospital, where Wilczewski was accused of kicking and trying to headbutt Randolph. Randolph shocked Wilczewski once with his Taser, but Wilczewski began thrashing wildly, so Randolph shocked him again -- and for a second longer than the five seconds that police policy permits.

Randolph reported that the Taser cycled for six seconds because Randolph had grabbed Wilczewski and pulled him from the police cruiser while shocking him. Wilczewski ultimately pleaded guilty to assault, aggravated assault and attempted assault.

Alpert said Randolph should not have been involved in the incident at the hospital.

"You don't have that officer take him anywhere," Alpert said. "You get another officer who has not just been in a fight with him to do it."

Randolph's attorney, Mark Marein, said he could not address whether Randolph should have been permitted to escort Wilczewski or why the Taser cycled longer than allowed. But, Marein said in his client's defense, "when this fella got to the hospital, he went ballistic."

Also in May 2010, several officers, including Smith, pursued and forcibly arrested Harold Harris, 39, who they believed was involved in a nearby aggravated robbery on the East Side.

Harris had run a red light and ignored orders to pull over and get out of his car, according to a report. He fell to the ground after being pried from the car and hit his face on the pavement.

Officers reported hitting him "numerous times" before they were able to handcuff him.

It turned out the car Harris was driving was not the one involved in the nearby aggravated robbery. Harris told police he fled from them because his driver's license had been suspended.

Harris ultimately pleaded guilty to failure to comply with a police order or signal.

Other incidents that began with an officer's observation prompt questions about whether the behavior warranted so vigorous a response. Take the arrest last October of Marlando Williams.

Lentz, according to a police report, decided to approach Williams after he and Smith saw the man jaywalking near East 93rd Street and Wade Park Avenue. Smith said the man looked familiar from prior incidents in which "large crowds were dispersed after distrubing (sic)."

A foot chase followed after the officers approached Williams, who pushed a heavy, metal-and-glass door into Lentz, according to the police report. The two struggled on the ground before Williams fled, then ran back toward Lentz, who shocked him with a Taser.

Jaywalking is rarely enforced in Cleveland. The report involving Williams is one of fewer than a dozen in the last two years that have mentioned the infraction, according to a Plain Dealer review of more than 131,000 police reports filed during the last two years.

"If these are not always enforced, then why single out this jaywalker?" Walker said. "It brings up questions of selectivity or bias."

There is no box for jaywalking on a UNDF form. When asked why they engaged Williams, Lentz and Smith checked next to boxes for disorderly conduct, flight and assault on a police officer. Morris, the police spokesman, said the officers had a right to go after Williams since he looked familiar from two prior incidents.

Williams pleaded guilty to attempted assault.

In other cases, the need for police intervention was clearer.

In February, Lentz and another officer were called to a restaurant at East 77th Street and Carnegie Avenue, where a naked man was accused of smashing out a storefront window.

There, the officers encountered Robert Sharp, 32, who according to a police report was bleeding, blocking traffic, screaming obscenities and threatening to kill people.

Sharp "posed a threat to officer's safety, himself and all others, and at this time there was heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic," so Lentz tackled him. Sharp resisted handcuffs and began wrestling with Lentz, according to the report. A sergeant who had arrived to assist the officers ultimately used his Taser to subdue Sharp. Police found an unattended 4-year-old who identified himself as Sharp's son and two pitbulls in Sharp's car. They also found suspected PCP.

"This guy was strong, and when they're on that type of stuff, they're really strong," said restaurant owner Bob Borders, who believes the police handled the situation appropriately.

"This guy's out of his mind. You're either going to kill him, or he's going to kill you."

Sharp pleaded guilty to charges of vandalism and drug possession.

Law enforcement experts, Chief McGrath and police union officials all agree that certain circumstances require the use of nondeadly force. They also stress that an officer's arrest totals should be considered alongside the number of times he uses force.

Bissell, based on numbers McGrath provided, used force at a higher rate than the others -- in three of her 21 arrests, or 14 percent of the time. Smith had eight times as many arrests and used force in about 11 percent of them. Lentz used force in about 9 percent of his 129 arrests.

Crawford, Randolph and Perez all had fewer than 85 arrests.

"All actions you question were done in accordance with departmental rules and policy," attorney William "Bud" Doyle said in response to questions about Lentz, whom he is representing.

"Once all of the arrest records have been completely reviewed, I believe that the conclusion will be that Marty Lentz is an excellent and professional police officer serving and protecting his community."

But Scott Greenwood, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said the number of arrests doesn't matter if the arrests involving force aren't yielding convictions.

"All of these reports clearly illustrate that the agency has a problem," Greenwood said. "The perception is a problem. The reality is a problem, and there are greater accountability issues they need to face."

Plain Dealer staffer Gayle Powell contributed to this story.