It’s been seven months since Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb was involved in a car crash in Downtown Cleveland. Shortly after the incident, Chief Annie Todd said Bibb’s police officer driver had likely violated department policy by turning on his emergency lights and running a red light.
The crash touched off dueling city investigations that so far have led to no discipline, not even a traffic ticket, for the officer.
Witnesses, surveillance camera footage and statements by Bibb’s driver indicate that on June 13, the police officer behind the wheel of an unmarked black SUV turned on his emergency lights and ran a red light on Superior Avenue at East 12th Street, colliding with a van.
Normally, when the public gets into crashes, the at-fault driver gets a ticket soon after. But this case shows how different the process is for police officers.
In this case, two city agencies have investigated — the police department’s Traffic Safety Analysis Panel and the Office of Professional Standards, the agency that investigates civilian complaints against Cleveland police — both found there was no emergency that justified turning on emergency lights and running the light.
It seemed the investigations would soon be resolved. The Civilian Police Review Board could vote, based on the OPS investigation, to recommend discipline to the chief of police and public safety director who would issue a determination.
But instead, the board decided to send the case to a third city department for investigation.
“I think we should send that back to internal affairs and allow them to do an investigation around those allegations,” said Billy Sharp, the review board's chair during its November 12 meeting when OPS administrator Marcus Perez presented the agency’s investigation into the crash.
Perez recommended the review board approve discipline for improper emergency driving, failing to activate a body-worn camera, and, most potentially damaging to the officer, being untruthful about several details, including whether there were injuries, and whether there was actually a meeting he was rushing the mayor to at City Hall.
It’s the untruthfulness allegation that the review board wants to send to internal affairs for an investigation.
“They could disagree with us and send it back and say we disagree,” Sharp said. “We still would feel, as you said, we did a thorough investigation. We just want to know what they would have done if this was something they had uncovered.”
The decision to ask internal affairs to investigate will further delay any potential discipline for the officer — possibly by months, said city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair.
The police department was prepared to proceed with discipline months ago, according to Sinclair, but then officials learned Perez’s office was planning to investigate and decided to wait so all the discipline could be issued at once.
The review board also had questions about whether Bibb played a role in the officer’s decision to flip on the emergency lights and jump the red.
Shortly after the crash, the driver told the responding officer he was rushing Bibb to an “emergency meeting” at City Hall, body cam video shows.
“When we talk about the conversation that happened in the car, that only two people are privy, we talk about the mayor allegedly said, ‘I got to get to this meeting.’ Is that in a statement anywhere?” Sharp asked during the Nov. 12 meeting.
The hypothetical conversation between Bibb and his driver is not something OPS investigators pursued, according to Perez.
“We did not even consider the discussion that was in that car because that’s an assumption. We don’t deal with assumptions,” said Perez. “We just deal with facts.”
The mayor’s office did not provide the investigator evidence of a meeting: no calendars, no statement from the mayor and OPS did not interview the officer or Bibb, according to Perez.
And even if the mayor had an emergency meeting, that wouldn’t be a legitimate justification for using emergency lights under city policy or state law.
Bibb did not tell his driver to flash the lights and run the red light, Sinclair said.
So what about a traffic ticket?
Perez said the officer didn’t get one on the scene because no other officer was there to witness the crash. Later he did not receive one because he’s possibly facing criminal charges for lying and for the damage from the crash. It would be like “double jeopardy,” said Perez.
If internal affairs finds there was no crime committed, the case will come back to the Civilian Police Review Board one more time for possible discipline.
There is a review board meeting scheduled for Jan. 14, but the city has not yet completed the internal affairs investigation so discipline will have to wait at least until February, according to Perez.
