EAST CLEVELAND TATTLER

Issue Number 13, Ma y 2012 May Send an email to eastc le velandleaks@gmail.com to g et the Tattler emailed to y ou eastcle lev get you

ECS NEXT CHIEF?

Lewis wants to end practice of selecting only East Cleveland police and firefighters to lead safety forces
By CLYDE CLODHOPPER East Clevelands next police chief is going to be a civil service police officer who knew and did nothing to investigate, arrest and prosecute an ex-detective who used her law enforcement authority to help a man she was married to sell cocaine. It could be a civil service police officer who knew and did not investigate, arrest and prosecute ex-detective Randy Hicks when he Chantelle Lewis arrived at the police station drunk and armed, and who then violated the federal civil rights of a handcuffed man when he hit him twice. It might be the civil service police sergeant who calls the city home because he grew up in it, but who routinely violates a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prevents cops from searching a persons pockets or ordering them to empty their pockets. The Supreme Court decision is so absolute it doesnt allow him to pretend the East Clevelanders whose rights he violates have weapons to justify his unlawful search when he knows they dont. And since this rightsviolating sergeant acts in the presence of other civil service police officers, the next police chief could be a police officer who knows he does this and keeps silent. Keeping the police chief as a civil service position could even cause a career civil service commander, a guy who took an internal affairs complaint that had been filed against him and tossed it in the trash, to one day lead the police department. If they hadnt been terminated, the two civil service police officers who fired 10 shots at an 18 year old African American woman near a busy intersection could have one day aspired to be East Clevelands chief of police.

Civil service limits police chief choices to cops with no professional leadership experience

Civil service cops whove committed crimes, seen other cops commit crimes and who have violated resident civil rights could one day become chief

DO EAST CLEVELAND RESIDENTS REALLY WANT BAD CIVIL SERVICE COPS TO LEAD? Commander Mike Cardilli still aspires to be police chief after he tossed a residents internal affairs complaint about him in the trash. Det. James Naylor (center) joined Det. Scott Gardner (right) and ex-detective Randy Hicks in stealing a drug dealers big screen televisions from police evidence. Gardner also called Council President Joy Jordan stupid during a council meeting and conspired with Ralph Spotts to cover-up a criminal investigation of himself. None arrested or pushed to prosecute ex-detective Hicks when he arrived at work drunk and hit a handcuffed prisoner because they protect each other. These employees are among the only choices wholl be eligible for police chief when Spotts is out. No currently employed cop has FBI training in anything.

Council vice president Chantelle C. Lewis raised the topic of removing the police and fire chiefs from the civil service this past Tuesday at her General Services & Administration meeting on May 8 and drew an early round of protest from a council member who doesnt hold committee meetings, and who is widelycriticized for her illiteracy and ignorant comments, Mildred Brewer. The mayor shouldnt have that kind of power, she screeched even though she follows mayor Gary Norton like a trained mutt. Lewis says, why not? Cleveland does it. The mayor would appoint and council would confirm, Lewis has said. Councilman Nathaniel Martin has said he wants to keep an open mind out it. Anyone who reads the East Cleveland Tattler knows this publication is no fan of Nortons. But if residents want a police department that is led by a professional police chief, one without ties to any current civil service police officer who has already demonstrated a capacity for incompetence, civil rights

violations, and in some cases, committing crimes while hiding behind their badges, they must push council to support changes in how top management is selected. There isnt a single civil service police officer employed with East Clevelands police department whos attended any FBI training program for leadership, forensics, detective work, civil rights protections, correct evidentiary procedures or even how to properly use informants. Ongoing legal training is non-existent. This creates a reality where bad habits get picked up by civil service police officers that keep getting passed down from one cop to the next for generations. Without an outside management perspective, nothing changes. This isnt about Norton. Its about the needs of East Cleveland residents to have a police department whose police officers dont beat them, mistreat them, wrongfully prosecute them, steal from them and even murder them. Hicks was a civil service cop who enraged ex-Judge Sandra Walker when he wanted to
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EAST CLEVELAND TA TTLER, NO . 13, MA Y 2012 TATTLER, NO. MAY

THESE TW OP AGES ARE MORE CREDIBLE THAN THE ENTIRE PD TWO PA

Civil service made Spotts a lesser of evils when ex-chief was fired
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prosecute a man with a felony for spitting on his shoe. Reporter Carl Monday broadcast a report that accused him of being the last person to see Sandra Little Bit Varney alive before she was found strangled to death in 2007. Civil service police chief Rakph Spotts confessed to the FBI in 2009 that Hicks used Varney as an out of pocket informant, but did nothing to investigate how he paid her. Even when Lewis exposed what Hicks had done at a council meeting, Spotts defended him and cut a deal to let him resign instead of prosecuting his civil service buddy. East Clevelands civil service cops are still arresting and prosecuting residents and visitors for marijuana possession when the ex-mayor asked council to make it a ticketable offense four years ago. Civil service police officers are unnecessarily creating criminal records that damage the futures of the citys majority black residents while councils old school wants to hold on to the antiquated system that allows it to happen. Civil service firefighters right now are earning an extra $10,000 to $30,000 annually in overtime off the citys taxpayers while secretly lobbying select members of council not to support the changes that allows them to boost their pockets and pensions. Every time the issue of changing civil service comes up, those with the most to lose the cops and firefighters who dont live in East Cleveland and who cost the city the most in overtime and lawsuits complain. What do they complain about? Well it would deprive me of an opportunity to be chief after Ive worked here so long, is the standard line one gets from those employees with the most rank in the departments. Keeping the ordinance the same is about them and not the city, and it hasnt

produced a better workforce, which is why it needs to change. Norton is a one-term mayor. Voters will choose someone else to lead next year. He is truly and totally irrelevant when it comes to this issue and didnt support or push it when exmayor Eric Brewer tried to open the door to hire a known and trained professional like ex-Cleveland police chief Mary Bounds to lead and reform the department. Det. Kyle Cunningham vioEven if council lates federal laws that stop gave Norton the him from searching pockets authority to pick a police chief, the next mayor could fire them. Employee criticism is also irrelevant because nothing would prevent those currently employed from applying for the job. Changing the rules would even allow a freshman cop or firefighter with a degree in law, fire sciences or criminal justice to impress a mayor so much that he or she could become chief instead of waiting for years to go through the ranks. Outside chief choices could bring a candidate with a higher level of experience and no ties to safety forces whove grown too comfortable with each other to be effective managers, and who stifle the professional growth of better-trained employees just because of jealousy.

Spotts could never adjust from being a union president to a professional manager because he constantly found himself defending bad cops he once represented and defended as their union representative. The state auditor said in 2002 that those in leadership didnt need to be in the same unions as those they led, said an ex-official who asked to remain anonymous. The city is facing a $5.8 million deficit. The cost of civil service and union loyalty between the police and fire chiefs, and the employees they supervise, is a tremendous drain on the citys budget. Nearly all civil service police and firefighters dont live in East Cleveland, so they dont care about the city in the same manner as those who do. They say they do, but did one civil service firefighter get off their lazy asses and leave the fire station to volunteer for school crossing guard duties when Norton pulled them off the streets? Theres an ordinance that requires firefighters to perform those duties, along with cutting grass, but they do nothing extra. for the city. Any council member who expresses more loyalty to employees instead of the residents they serve is operating on a misguided set of principles that does not place the interests of the city first. Lewis is right to lead a discussion that could eventually reform the police department and give future mayors more flexibility to control costs and create the type of standards needed to ensure the civil rights of East Clevelands residents and visitors are protected. The majority of council would do well to encourage rather than discourage her effort and not allow the interests of selfish employees to outweigh those of the residents and taxpayers.

Norton lies to RTA board

Jordan says council did not approve RTA plans for a hydrogen fuel tank behind Windermere
By JULINDA MIADOLLA RTA board chairman George Dixon will have to learn like the residents of East Cleveland and the media have learned that if Mayor Gary Nortons lips are moving hes lying. At a May 15 RTA board meeting captured by 44112NEWS, CEO Joe Calabrese announced plans to install a hydrogen fuel tank behind Windermere with a permit from East Cleveland. Norton said he was fine with it, without telling Dixon, Calabrese and the board that council hadnt approved the permit. Council president Joy Jordan says they know nothing of RTAs plans and the mayor doesnt have the authority to approve a permit. Jordan is sending a letter to Dixon to let him know Norton wasnt truthful and to tell RTA not to move forward. Jordan said she has safety concerns for residents in the area. Norton told the RTA board that the fire department said it could handle a hydrogen fuel fire. Firefighters speaking on condition of anonymity say the issue has never been discussed with them. Hydrogen burns at a high heat, which could prove to be a problem for the citys fire department if a fuel tank explodes. A hydrogen gas tank exploded at the city airport in Rochester New York in August 2010 when a spark ignited as one tank was exchanged for another. Two people were injured. Two months earlier in June 2010 another explosion injured four students at Columbia Universitys Schweitzer Hall when a 2000 pound hydrogen fuel tank exploded and sent shrapnel everywhere. Hydrogen is a clean fuel
Go online to 44112NEWS to see video footage of the actual RTA meeting RTA board member Lee Serrano called the hydrogen gas tank a dumb project. Lyin Azz Gary Norton said council approved a permit for it. Norton used the RTA board seat he holds to get councilwoman Mildred Brewers son a job, which means she used her public position to gain a benefit for a close relative. Residents can complain to the Ohio Ethics Commission.

but the explosions generated industry-wide concerns about safety. Norton lives near Forest Hills Park off Lee Road and would not be exposed to the tanks dangers if it exploded near a school and residential homes along Hayden Avenue. The residents of Bryn Mawr and those near Third Avenue off Hayden would be the most affected by a tank explosion.