Resident: 'What we have here is
a cancer'
Brendan Keefe
LINCOLN HEIGHTS, Ohio – Police
are tasked with protecting the public from crime. But the I-Team discovered
some of the convicted criminals in Lincoln Heights are the ones wearing a
uniform and badge.
On May 16, 2013, Michael Glover
was driving along Wabash Avenue in Lincoln Heights when he saw bright
headlights following him.
“The lights were so unusually
bright, that I could not see in front of me," Glover said. “I pulled over,
and they passed, and they worked around again, and they ran me off again."
Glover said he pulled into the
parking lot of the Oak Park Apartments to confront the driver when he realized
it was a Lincoln Heights police cruiser driven by Officer Angala Taylor.
That’s when things got heated.
“I realize now I walked into a trap,” Glover
said.
According to an Internal
Affairs review by the police department, Taylor believed Glover’s demeanor was
“threatening” when he approached her outside the apartment complex. She said he
was “talking in a very loud tone.”
The report states she tried to
communicate with him, but Glover walked away and reentered his vehicle.
“(Officer Taylor) should have
used her training to deescalate the situation,” the department's investigation
stated. “When (Glover) attempted to leave, she did not have enough reasons to
detain him.”
Instead of allowing him to
leave, Taylor demanded to see Glover’s ID multiple times, according to the
report. He refused.
“Before I could say another
word, Taylor was charging me, and she had a gun in her hand,” Glover said. “The
gun was dangling, and I’m staring down the barrel of a gun – and I’m just
frozen like a deer in headlights."
Taylor then attempted to detain
Glover, which led to a struggle, the report states. All the while, Glover asked
Taylor why he was being detained.
Reviewing an audio recording
from the incident, the I-Team counted Glover ask the officer 29 times why he
was being arrested.
Taylor didn't have an answer,
investigators said.
“Taylor was not able to exactly
state what (Glover) said to her that would classify his actions as disorderly,”
the report states.
Officer David Smack was then
called in as backup and grabbed Glover’s hand, according to the report. As the
struggle continued, Smack used his Taser on Glover and put his foot on his
back, investigators said.
“I look back to see Officer
Smack stomp me in the back, with full force, right over the screws that are
holding my spine together," Glover said.
He said the officers hit him in
an extremely sensitive spot.
“I've got a bad back,” Glover
is heard shouting in an audio recording of the incident. “I had surgery."
The shouting continued:
Officer: "Would you calm
down?"
Glover: "What did I do?
Tell me what I did. You don't know exactly what I did."
Officer: "I sure
don't."
Glover "What did I
do?"
Officer "I'll find
out."
Officers Laroy Smith, Mike Lowe
and Justine Pile were also called in to assist in Glover’s arrest. During the
struggle, some of Smith’s ammunition “dislodged from his duty belt and fell
onto Glover’s back,” according to the report.
After spotting the ammunition,
the officers assumed Glover had a gun, investigators said.
"(They said) ‘Look,
there's bullets. He's got a gun.’ When you say that around police officers,
that's pretty much death right there," Glover said.
But the bullets didn’t belong
to Glover – they belonged to the only convicted criminal at the scene: Sgt.
Smith.
Glover’s charges of disorderly
conduct and resisting arrest were eventually dismissed. He later filed a
written complaint to the department’s Internal Affairs unit, stating he “was
falsely arrested and Tased without justice.” It was later decided the “officers
could have dealt with the situation in a more tactful way,” investigators said.
The I-Team uncovered Smith was
convicted in 1996 for falsification, and then violated his probation.
Lincoln Heights Police Chief
Conroy Chance promoted Smith to his second in command in the past, but then
demoted and fired him in 2014 after a sting operation by sheriff's
investigators. Smith was arrested for felony theft while on duty.
"Within the last two
years, there have been some trying times for my department," Conroy said.
Conroy said some hires at his
department before his tenure were “questionable."
"Now we're actually paying
the cost of those decisions that were made back then," he said.
And Conroy isn’t being
figurative. The department paid $240,000 in a confidential settlement with
other residents who were beaten and arrested by police in 2008 on charges that
didn’t stick.
Former Vice Mayor Gary Brown
and high school science teacher William Franklin said, like many, they don’t
trust the police in their village.
"We are living in a sick
place when we let guys like these become officers," Franklin said, before
suing the department with Brown.
Both men received cash
settlements after the suit and signed "non-disparagement" agreements
promising not to "in any way criticize the village of Lincoln
Heights" to anyone, including "the news media."
"Officer Maddox, Officer
Smack and Officer Capps beat me while I had my handcuffs on,” Franklin said
before filing the lawsuit.
Those officers are still on the
force.
Officer Steven Maddox was once
a Cincinnati police officer, but was fired in 2005 when he was convicted of
sexual imposition for groping a woman while on duty.
Officer Phillip Capps was fired
by Lincoln Heights in 2001, and then rehired. Since then, he's been written up
for "a pattern of behavior" of flirting with female drivers,
according to police documents. Officials said he also issued fake citations
when the women didn't respond to "his flirtatious advances."
Capps was required to quit five
biker gangs, including the "Made Men" and the "Ground
Assassins" after he showed up during a jury trial in uniform to support a
fellow biker charged with a felony, an internal investigation states.
One day after his arrest,
Glover filed an official complaint with the department. Then later, he filed a
lawsuit.
Lincoln Heights resident Marcus
Simpson joined Glover’s lawsuit against the village after he was arrested on
charges that were also later dismissed.
"Corruption – it's
embedded in Lincoln Heights,” Simpson said. "They need a house cleaning.
The only way to get rid of the cancer is to cut it out – all of it. You can't
leave any of it, because it will fester and re-grow. What we have here is a
cancer."