‘You Ain’t No Big Man’: Videos Show Cleveland Police’s Disparate Response to Kids in Crisis

Police were called to assist an 8-year-old boy with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Cleveland in December 2020. When the child struggled against officers, one threatened to strap the child down and added, “You ain’t no big man” (CLEVELAND DIVISION OF POLICE).

By Cid Standifer | The Marshall Project – Cleveland

This story is a joint project of the nonprofit The Marshall Project – Cleveland and Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join the free mailing lists for Eye on Ohio or The Marshall Project, as this helps provide more public service reporting.

An ambulance was already outside the East Side Cleveland home, its lights flashing, when the police officer arrived one evening in December 2020. According to body camera footage from the incident, the aunt of an 8-year-old with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder said the boy was “acting crazy.” At one point, she said he had climbed out a window onto the house’s roof.

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Community meeting on consent decree to focus on CDP search and seizure practices

By Rich Weiss, Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland

The Cleveland Consent Decree mandates that the City of Cleveland Division of Police conduct all investigatory stops, searches, and arrests fairly and respectfully as part of an effective overall crime prevention strategy that considers community values.

How well they are discharging that mandate is the subject of the next community conversation in the series of discussions jointly sponsored by United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland NAACP.

The next meeting in the series is this Wednesday, August 11 at 6:00 p. The theme will be Search and Seizure. The public is invited and encouraged to attend these sessions to help in the monitoring process.

To attend, ask questions or voice your concerns, register for any of the four remaining Consent Decree public meetings by visiting unitedwaycleveland.org.

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