Cleveland police gave order for George Floyd protesters to disperse; legal observers, witnesses said no one heard it

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Police at the entrance of the downtown Cleveland’s Justice Center during Saturday’s George Floyd protests gave no audible warning before they began blasting flash grenades, canisters of tear gas, pepper balls and wooden bullets into a crowd of demonstrators, multiple legal observers and witnesses told cleveland.com.

The crowd caused minor damage to the Justice Center and chucked fruit, vegetables and plastic water bottles toward police, the witnesses said. It was only after officers seemingly without warning began dousing people with pepper spray and shooting crowd control devices into the group that the damage became widespread and spread to the rest of the city, the legal observers and witnesses said.

At least two legal observers who were wearing identifying bright green hats or armbands got pepper-sprayed in the melee. Wooden bullets struck others across the street, and a tear gas canister hit another in the eye. Several people in the middle and back of the massive crowd that had no idea police had deemed the gathering illegal were also struck as they stood peacefully still.

Many people in the crowd cited the police department’s response during those minutes outside the Justice Center as a dangerous escalation that intensified the crowd’s reaction.

Three legal observers and four witnesses, as well as several videos reviewed by cleveland.com, said they heard no order to disperse and were surprised to see the city claim in a Monday night news release that a supervisor using a portable sound system gave multiple orders to disperse before police resorted to the “non-lethal crowd control munitions.”

Video recorded by cleveland.com shows an incident commander reading what appears to be a dispersal order into a bullhorn as she approached the crowd with officers in riot gear in tow. The commander was around a corner and behind the crowd that was chanting loudly in the opposite direction, the video showed. The commander’s order could barely be heard over the crowd and the constant honking of car horns in the video, which was recorded by an editor standing less than 50 feet away who was separate from the crowd.

Cleveland police spokesman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia, on Tuesday, insisted that the department has body camera video of the commander giving three warnings for the crowd to disperse, beginning at 3:37 p.m. on Saturday. Cleveland.com asked for the video on Monday, and Ciaccia as of 8 a.m. Wendesday had yet to provide it to cleveland.com.

“There were no dispersal orders that we heard,” said Sarah Gelsomino, a lawyer at the Friedman and Gilbert law firm who was one of about a dozen legal observers present on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild. “Not a one.”

Dana Beveridge, another legal observer present on behalf of the National Lawyer’s Guild, said she saw a Cleveland police supervisor in a white uniform shirt holding what looked like a bullhorn.

“I was in the front line at this time and never saw her raise the bullhorn, nor heard her make any announcements with it,” Beveridge said. “I heard no other audio announcements before hearing the explosion of a flash-bang grenade which sent many of the crowd running down the steps.”

Another legal observer, as well as two witnesses who spoke to cleveland.com on the condition they not be named, also confirmed that they saw the supervisor carrying the bullhorn, but never saw or heard her use it.

“I never for one second heard any voice amplification from any police officer of any rank whatsoever throughout the entire day,” the lawyer who wished to remain anonymous said.

One of the witnesses, a government worker who wished not to be named to protect his position, and an acquaintance, did not hear the supervisor give any orders.

“If she said anything, you couldn’t hear it,” the man said. “Then they just started shooting that stuff at us and throwing those smoke bombs.”

Julian Khan, a community organizer in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood, also said he heard no orders to disperse given outside the Justice Center.

Cleveland police policy says that the scene commander at a mass gathering must give verbal communications to a crowd that are loud enough for a police officer in or behind the crowd to verify having heard them. The commander should also assume a vantage point that is visible to the entire crowd, the policy says.

Videos taken and posted to social media show that a few hundred people crowded the building’s doors and windows and started hanging signs and chanting. Eventually, the Cleveland police bike unit showed up and formed a line in front of the doors. A few demonstrators got between the crowd and the police officers as the crowd chanted slogans, including “I can’t breathe.”

Some people began spray-painting anti-police graffiti on the building as the chanting continued. A few threw items like plastic water bottles and fruit toward the line of officers.

Videos show the bike officers spraying demonstrators with pepper spray.

The city of Cleveland says that demonstrators then began to throw items including rocks at the officers and destroying property.

The incident commander, whom the city has yet to identify, showed up along with a van full of Cleveland police in riot gear. The commander used an Amplivox portable sound system to give multiple orders to disperse, according to the city’s release.

“When dispersal orders were ignored, and assaults on officers continued, officers deployed munitions including pepper spray,” the release said. “Protestors continued with criminal acts of violence including aggravated rioting and vandalism, which were countered by police with the use of less-lethal means including smoke.”

But the legal observers and witnesses who spoke to cleveland.com disputed the police department’s accoun that officers were being pelted with rocks before using force on the crowd.

“The worst thing that was thrown at that Justice Center [at that time] was plastic water bottles,” Gelsomino said.

The government worker said, “I didn’t see no damn rocks.” Khan also said he saw no rocks or projectiles being launched at police before they began firing tear gas and flash grenades.

The lawyer who asked to remain unnamed said he saw some people throw broccoli and grapes in addition to water bottles.

“If there was damage, I don’t know that it was more a crack in a window or two, or people spray painting stuff,” he said. “There was no obvious property damage before they started that stuff.”

Videos posted to social media from inside the crowd show people who were standing still, many holding their hands in the air or holding up signs, as canisters whizzed through the air, struck them and then exploded at their feet. Some demonstrators picked up canisters of tear gas and threw it back toward the police officers who fired them off.

The officers then moved the crowd away from the Justice Center entrance and into Fort Huntington Park across Lakeside Avenue from the Justice Center, where they continued firing canisters and wooden bullets into the crowd, the videos show. Beveridge said she got struck with a pellet while she was standing in the park.

Gelsomino said one man, whose identity she does not know, was struck in the eye by one of the devices police deployed and she witnessed his eyeball dangling from his socket. She ran to a group of police officers, identified herself as a legal observer and begged them to send a medic to care for the man.

“They just stared at me and didn’t move,” Gelsomino said.

Several minutes went by before Gelsomino said a supervisor in a white shirt told her that Cleveland EMS had already been called. Demonstrators carried the man to Ontario Street, where paramedics arrived and took him to a hospital, she said.

Cleveland police officers reported minor injuries from the clash, the city said.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the police instigated what happened in front of the Justice Center,” the government worker said. “They were not even trying to calm the crowd in any way. They were instigating that crowd.”

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