CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Sandusky man filed a lawsuit against Cuyahoga County and the sheriff’s deputy on Saturday, who shot him in the face with a beanbag that destroyed his left eye during last year’s George Floyd protest in downtown Cleveland .
The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department did not have a formal policy on the use of beanbag shotguns, and deputy Bruce Lourie received no prior training on the weapon he shot 25 year old John Sanders in the head from at least 75 feet outside the justice center on May 30, 2020, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also accused the county of negligence in hiring Lourie as the sheriff’s deputy in 2002 and failure to do a proper background check. The complaint states that Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Police Department suspended Lourie in 2000 on charges of dishonesty for lying to superiors and after someone he arrested accused him of planting evidence.
An investigation to see if Lourie, who remains the sheriff’s assistant, should be prosecuted for the shooting is ongoing.
Attorneys Dennis Murray Jr. and Subodh Chandra filed the 23-page complaint on behalf of Sanders in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court the day before the incident’s first anniversary.
Murray told cleveland.com On Tuesday, the case of Sanders showed the county inadequate training of MPs to properly respond to an incident like the May 30 protests.
“I can’t say I’m confident that they have addressed these issues,” he said. “If a similar incident happened today, would we have a different outcome? Hopefully.”
The lawsuit also states that Armond Budish, then-Sheriff David Schilling, the executive director of Cuyahoga County, and other leaders promoted a culture within the sheriff’s department that accepted excessive violence, citing several cases where Cuyahoga County prison guards have been charged or disciplined in recent years.
The lawsuit seeks at least $ 25,000 in damages and an opportunity to present the case to a jury.
Sanders joins at least 18 other people who have filed lawsuits against various law enforcement agencies’ response to the protests that sparked riot and looting across the city center after police fired ammunition at a crowd of hundreds outside the justice center.
A spokeswoman for Cuyahoga County said the county will respond to the lawsuit in court as soon as it receives a copy of the lawsuit.
Colin Sikon, a spokesman for Laborer’s Local 860, the union that represents the sheriff’s deputies, said he was unable to comment on the lawsuit as he was relieved of it until a. knew nothing cleveland.com Reporter reached him Tuesday afternoon. Sikon said Lourie has not yet contacted him.
Sanders told it before cleveland.com that he approached the justice center around 5:30 p.m. to snap a picture of a broken window and some graffiti when the sheriff’s deputies threw a canister of chemical spray from a window at a group nearby. He turned to leave the building when a beanbag filled with lead bullets hit his left temple. The impact was videotaped by another protester.
The bag ripped open when it hit Sanders’ skull. Lead bullets pierced his left eyeball, and doctors later surgically removed his eye from his orbit, he said.
The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department put Lourie on limited service in June and requested the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the Ohio Attorney General to conduct a criminal investigation into the shooting. Cuyahoga County District Attorney Michael O’Malley withdrew his office from overseeing the case and asked James Flaiz to take over as Geauga District Attorney in January. Flaiz asked BCI agents to do some follow-up investigations. The investigation is still ongoing, Flaiz said on Friday.
Lourie did not activate his body camera, the complaint said.
The lawsuit says Lourie received no beanbag firing training without an unnamed supervisor handing him the shotgun and showing him how to use it. The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department has no written policy on ammunition. The complaint cited Cleveland City’s guidelines, stating that officials should avoid shooting people in the head, neck and chest and that they should only be used between 6 and 15 meters for maximum accuracy.
Sanders is also suing Rep. Juan Rodriguez Jr., who was stationed next to Lourie at the Justice Center when he shot and killed Sanders. in the his report on the incident, Rodriguez wrote that he saw Lourie shoot several people and stuff his pockets with beanbags on May 30th. Rodriguez wrote that Lourie “accidentally” shot someone in the head and then asked Lourie if he needed a break from shooting. Lourie then handed him the shotgun, and Rodriguez fired a single shot before realizing he couldn’t use the ammunition safely because the chemical mist from the canisters the MPs had thrown out the window was too thick.
Rodriguez also did not turn on his body camera, the complaint said.
The lawsuit also states that Cuyahoga County should never have hired Lourie in 2002 because they relied on references from Lourie’s former colleagues at CMHA rather than digging into his background and personnel file.
The lawsuit states that CMHA has brought Lourie to a last chance arrangement with CMHA for “outrageous misconduct” that involves dishonesty towards a manager, trying to get colleagues to lie about his wrongdoing, his own dishonesty and abuse members of the public and falsely accuse an arrested person of a crime by providing evidence. “
The lawsuit does not contain any quotes or documents showing where this information came from.
Lourie’s personnel file at the Sheriff’s Department revealed that he had signed a document authorizing the department to obtain his personnel file from CMHA on the day the county hired him. Neither the CMHA nor the sheriff’s department have any record of the department ever requesting the file, the complaint said.
Cleveland City Court files indicate that Lourie City Prosecutors charged Lourie City with falsification of a misdemeanor in October 2000.
Cleveland.com requested copies of the files from the court on Tuesday.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated which members of the sheriff’s department represented the 860 Labor Union. The union represents the sheriff’s deputies.
