The Daily Populous Wednesday July 7th, 2021 day edition
Authored by cleveland.com and submitted by pain_in_your_ass

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Cleveland police union’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling keeping in place the city’s firing of Timothy Loehmann, the officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014.

Four of the court’s seven justices declined jurisdiction to review the 8th District Court of Appeals’ March finding that the union failed to serve the attorneys for the city of Cleveland with court filings at it challenged an arbitrator’s decision upholding Loehmann’s firing. The city fired the then-rookie officer for lying on his job application to become a police officer.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor joined Justices Jennifer Brunner, Michael Donnelly and Melody Stewart in determining there were no constitutional issues to consider in the appeal. Justices Patrick DeWine, Patrick Fischer and Sharon Kennedy dissented. The justices did not issue a written opinion explaining the vote, as is custom when the court declines to take up an appeal.

The decision effectively ends the union’s years-long quest to force the city to rehire Loehmann as a patrol officer.

“I am glad that Loehmann will never have a badge and gun in Cleveland again,” Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, said in a statement through attorney Subodh Chandra.

In his own statement, Chandra said that the decision means that “Loehmann’s career -- such as it was -- in Cleveland law enforcement is and should now be over.”

“Given his lies on his application to be an officer, that career should have never happened in the first place,” Chandra said. “The police union stained its own credibility by shamelessly advocating that it is no big deal for a sworn law-enforcement officer to lie on his job application -- and by its continuing efforts to torment the Rice family and the community.”

Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Jeff Follmer said the union is disappointed that none of the courts that rejected the appeal took up the merits of their argument that Loehmann’s firing was too harsh a punishment.

“We appreciate that three judges dissented but are disappointed that we were not granted a fair and impartial review,” Follmer said in a text message.

Follmer said he and the union’s attorneys are studying whether they have any other steps to try to get Loehmann’s job back.

Lawyers for Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, filed a brief asking the court not to take up the appeal.

The city fired Loehmann in May 2017, after cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer learned that Independence police supervisors allowed Loehmann to resign from their department in 2012 after a series of incidents, including emotional breakdowns on the gun range. Independence determined Loehmann was unfit to be a police officer. Loehmann also failed a 2009 written exam to join the Maple Heights police department.

Loehmann did not disclose either of those incidents on his application to join Cleveland’s police department, and the city did not obtain a copy of his personnel files. After the revelations about Loehmann’s history, the city changed its policy to require the department to obtain personnel files of police applicants who worked at other departments.

The union filed a grievance over Loehmann’s firing, and an arbitrator upheld the city’s decision to fire him. The union appealed the decision to the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, where Judge Joseph D. Russo ruled in favor of the city. The union appealed Russo’s decision to the 8th District Court of Appeals.

The 8th District in March declined to hear the appeal because the union served its notice of appeal to the city’s law department instead of the private law firm the city hired to defend Loehmann’s firing. The union asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn that decision and force the 8th District to consider the merits of their argument.

Loehmann shot Tamir on Nov. 22, 2014, as the 12-year-old boy played with an airsoft pellet gun in a city park outside Cudell Recreation Center. A grand jury later declined to charge Loehmann or his partner, Frank Garmback, in the boy’s killing.

The city of Cleveland agreed to pay Tamir’s family $6 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.

Samaria Rice launched a campaign to urge President Joe Biden’s Justice Department re-open the federal civil rights investigation into her son’s death that former President Donald Trump’s DOJ let languish for years and then closed without bringing charges after Trump lost his re-election.

The DOJ has yet to say whether it will take up the request.

xcmagnar on July 6th, 2021 at 20:35 UTC »

The fact that he still wants to be in that position after killing a kid tells me he really shouldn't keep being a cop....

alphabeticdisorder on July 6th, 2021 at 19:14 UTC »

Cleveland's PD is all sorts of horrible. After the firing, the FOP smeared the entire Rice family in the media, with zero repercussions. When one of the Browns players made a comment that that was a little messed up, the PD threw a tantrum and threatened to stop doing security at Browns games. Last year, it came out Loehmann, despite having been fired a couple years prior, was still playing on an intramural football squad for Cleveland first responders. When six black firefighters on the team found out who the guy was whose full name was mysteriously never used, they asked he be removed from the roster, as, you know, it's a team for first responders. Instead, they all got cut, and Loehmann remained.

Cleveland is a great city, and it deserves a better police force.

blankyblankblank1 on July 6th, 2021 at 18:07 UTC »

They fired him for lying on an application, not the killing. Ffs.