Review of citizen Niles police complaints – few in number, but why?

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

NILES

The city police department – under scrutiny by the Trumbull County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other citizens after the Jan. 2 shooting by officers – has what appears to be a good track record regarding citizen complaints.

Matthew Burroughs, 35, was shot to death as he drove toward his apartment in the Royal Mall Apartments after an earlier confrontation that day with a probation officer at Niles Municipal Court. Burroughs’ death is being investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

There have been only two formal complaints filed against city police since 2014. Both resulted in findings of misconduct, and both officers were disciplined.

By comparison, the Warren Police Department conducted investigations into 17 complaints of 27 allegations of police misconduct in 2017. Of those, six (22 percent) were found to be true.

“If you only have two use-of-force or two written complaints since 2014 for a department as large as ours, that’s pretty good,” Niles police Chief Jay Holland said.

One difference between the Niles and Warren departments is the citizen complaint form.

The Niles department’s form contains a warning that making a knowingly false complaint of misconduct against a police officer is a first-degree misdemeanor offense.

“Officers can be targets of false complaints by people seeking revenge on them for doing their job,” the form says.

Warren’s citizen-complaint process has undergone great scrutiny since the U.S. Department of Justice came to the city and found unconstitutional policing practices in the department. Warren’s complaint forms do not contain a warning regarding it being illegal to knowingly file a false complaint.

Holland said he doesn’t believe it’s meaningful to compare complaints for the Warren and Niles police departments, partly because the Warren PD has twice as many officers – 70 compared to Niles’ 35.

As another example, the Austintown Police Department, which has 40 officers, has conducted no internal-affairs investigations in 2016, 2017 or 2018, police Chief Bob Gavalier said. The department’s citizen-complaint form does not mention it is illegal to make a knowingly false complaint against an officer, but people are advised of that orally if they come to the department to discuss a complaint, Gavalier said.

Holland said he understands that because of the Burroughs’ shooting, people want to know about things like his department’s citizen complaints, but said, “We have a good department here. We get along with our community. We have good officers. I expect our officers to treat the public courteously, like the way they would if their family had a call.”

Holland became acting chief in 2016 and became chief in February 2017. In October 2016, he instituted a body-camera program for his officers. That same year, the department underwent certification through the Ohio Collaborative Law Enforcement Agency through the Ohio Department of Public Safety and other agencies.

The Ohio Collaborative board established state standards for the first time in Ohio’s history in 2015 for use of force, including use of deadly force. It also certifies training in other areas.

The Niles PD completed the program in March 2017 and on March 6 received a “provisional” certification in the two most recent areas, “bias-free policing” and “investigation of employee misconduct.”

A provisional certification means the department’s policies and procedures have been certified, but someone from the Ohio Collaborative still needs to make a site visit to “verify they are following the policy,” said Ed Burkhammer, Ohio Collaborative administrator.

“Since we instituted a body-camera program in October 2016, we have not had a sustained formal [citizen] complaint,” Holland said. “Do people call here upset about a crash where they were cited? Yes. They talk to the turn commander. But have we had a lot of [written citizen complaints] over the years? Absolutely not.”

In addition to the two complaints in 2014, the department received one in September 2018 – letters from city resident Lory Patrick complaining about remarks she said an officer made to her while he was investigating another woman’s complaint against Patrick.

The Vindicator obtained the officer’s body-camera video. It appears Patrick told the officer he needs “mental help if you believe her.”

The officer then responded: “Lory Patrick is telling me I need mental help? Now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years.”

Holland said he mailed Patrick a copy of the department’s “commendation/complaint form,” but she never returned it, so no formal internal-affairs investigation was carried out.

Patrick, who has been a landlord for decades, said she believes residents do not file complaints against the police department because “they know they will not win,” and “they are afraid of retaliation.”

Holland said that assertion is “ridiculous.”

One of the 2014 complaints was from a resident who said Patrolman Dan Myers was rude to her when she called police over a dispute involving her daughter and another girl.

Lt. Dan Adkins, who investigated the complaint, looked at the officer’s audio/video recording from his car and agreed with the woman.

“Although I do not believe that Patrolman Myers was being intentionally rude, I do believe that in this case his verbal tone, and his verbal delivery of his message used with [the woman] would certainly lead anyone reviewing this audio/video recording to believe he was intentionally being rude.”

Holland and former Niles Police Capt. Ken Criswell completed an in-depth investigation of the 2014 complaint against Patrolman Todd Mobley that resulted in Mobley serving a 30-day unpaid suspension for grabbing a Niles man by the jacket while on duty and threatening to kill him.

A fellow officer on the scene agreed Mobley had done those things and that Mobley had asked him to turn off the other officer’s dash-cam before the incident. The other officer initially believed it was appropriate to turn off the camera because Mobley had needed that to be done in the past while interviewing confidential informants.

The 21-page report written by Criswell and Holland, said Mobley violated departmental policy by not running the mobile audio/video recording device in the cruiser he was driving that day during the coat-grabbing incident and four other calls that day.

Mobley said the reason he didn’t turn on the recording device was because a “microphone pack” was missing from it. But that was contradicted by the officer who normally used that cruiser, the report says. Mobley was asked why he didn’t activate the recorder anyway since it would have still “recorded video along with audio from inside the cruiser.”

Mobley “had no explanation,” the internal-affairs report said.

Niles is one of 11 Trumbull County police departments certified under the Ohio Collaborative. Niles is among eight Trumbull County police departments at the highest level for having completed the first two years, according to the 2018 Ohio Collaborative annual report.

The Warren PD did not undergo the Ohio Collaborative certification process because the Justice Department required a more rigorous set of requirements, Warren police Chief Eric Merkel has said.

There are also 10 Trumbull County police departments not certified under the program – Braceville, Brookfield, Champion, Cortland, Fowler, Girard, Hartford, Kinsman, Newton Falls and the county sheriff’s office. Lordstown recently started the process.