Previously oncereal. In your experience as a police officer can you smell raw marijuana in a bag inside someone'spocket?
Yes. I probably put more people on probation than any other judge in this courthouse.
Yeah, because I can always put them in prisonlater.
Right? I don't think he had anything to do with thatoffice.
I don't want to be arat. He's a little rat on yourguy.
I think currently hehas.
How can you help us dothat?
What's thesolution? I'm gonnalie.
I hope you don't dothat.
From this American life inW.B.E.Z.
Chicago, it'scereal. One courthouse told week byweek.
I'm SarahCanick. I was talking to this guyKevin, 40 yearsold.
He'd been busted for giving someone at his college a marijuanacookie.
He'd offered it as a nicegesture.
Reallyjust,hey, haveone.
He thought the guy understood what itwas.
Wink,wink. But he didn't and all wentwrong.
Kevin ended up with a felonyconviction.
Well, another felonyconviction.
The case soundedabsurd.
There'd been a trial over thiscookie.
That'sfunny,right? I went to talk toKevin, the cookiebaker, in the hallway outside the courtroom in the Justice Center right after theverdict.
Notfunny. He was in what my mother would call a swiveit, cracking angryjokes, but also desperatelyupset, havecrying.
Kevin said he'd been a drug dealer when he wasyoung, but hechanged.
He was inschool, volunteering in hiscommunity, trying to start his ownbusiness, doingwell.
And nowthis, what Kevin called Fologna's ChildishStupidness.
It got him kicked out of hiscollege, and it also triggered a probation violation on a case from a few yearsearlier.
Kevin had been just two months shy of completing thatprobation.
He was almostdone. And nowthis.
I'msorry. Isaid, this is a roughday.
Hesaid, it's allright.
It's allright. It's allright.
I'm starting to get used toit,actually.
It started probably by16,17.
Like, once you're init, youcan't,like, I got rootshere.
There's like a bad relationship I can't get out ofit.
The roots here in thisbuilding.
Man,yeah, the JusticeSystem.
So far in thisseries, we've talked a lot about the system aspect of the JusticeSystem, how the machinery of it works ordoesn't.
Now, for the rest of theseries, we want to look at the criminal justice system a whole otherway.
We want to follow people who are likeKevin, people who feel like they have roots in thesystem, who've been in it for years and who've been shaped by itsmachinery.
Probably nothing we've reported so far would be news tothem.
They knowit. I know it's pretentious to saythis, but I keep thinking of this Russianword, choose to ofus.
It means to feelsomething, almostcentrally, to the point where you can tasteit.
You know it in yourbones.
So now we're going to follow people out of the JusticeCenter, out into theworld, into their normallives.
The guy we're going to startwith, his name is JesseNickerson.
Back in the summer of2016, before we got toCleveland, there had been a policescandal, with a satisfyingtwist, if I'm allowed to call itthat.
Two officers had arrested thisguy, JesseNickerson.
And instead of taking him back to thestation, they drove to a citypark, took off Jesse'shandcuffs, and one of theofficers, guy named DeneinDixon, six foot four former linebacker in the arena footballleague, challenged Jesse to afight.
Jesse squared off with Denein Dixon for asecond, but then he tookoff, he ran into thewoods.
The officers eventually foundhim, cuffedhim.
Jesse said they beathim.
The officers said he heardhimself.
The story made thenews.
Absolutelysick. Absolutelyshot.
Sick. That was themayor, talking to a TVreporter.
This all happened in EastCleveland, not to be confused with the East side ofCleveland.
East Cleveland is its own small city borderingCleveland.
17,000people, it's got its own city government and its own policedepartment.
And itseemed,refreshingly, as if those entities were taking responsibility for whathappened, andswiftly, noexcuses.
Both officers were fired withindays.
The police chief referred the case to stateinvestigators.
The county prosecutor's office sought criminalindictments.
One officer pleaded guilty to a couplemisdemeanors.
Theother, Denein Dixon pleaded to a couplefelonies.
We went to Denein Dixon's sentencing at the JusticeCenter.
He is the front line of our criminal justicesystem.
That's who the publicsees.
That's theprosecutor, AshleyKylbane.
You're ona, when you have somebody who's a publicofficial, who notonly, assaults a member of thecommunity, but then tries to cover it up by turning off their bodycam.
A police officer convicted for bad behavior on thejob, already unusual in thiscourthouse.
Andhere, Ashley Kylbane wasarguing,forcefully, for the harshest possiblepunishment.
She was pitching consecutivesentences, meaning the sentence for each crime would run back toback.
Thejudge, Nancyfirst, invited officer Dixon tospeak.
You have anything tosay,sir?
I'mscared. And hedid. Heapologized.
Hesaid, I understand I was put in a position of authority and I was entrusted with the public's trust to make adifference, to be part of the solution and not part of theproblem.
And then hesaid, I had no intention of assaultinganyone.
It's difficult tohear, but hesays, it was a tactic I had seen donebefore.
Youknow, take a guy out of cuffs and get him to stop running his mouth orwhatever.
Officer Dixon's lawyer told the court that Dixon had told him the samething,quote, which is kind ofdisturbing.
Other thanthat, no one remarks on this kind of disturbinginformation.
Just let's itgo. The judge sent in Stenayndix into two years in prison and it wasover.
Thevictim, JesseNicherson, was not in the courtroom the day of thesentencing.
But he'd been in touch with the county prosecutors throughout thecase.
He told a manual that at one point they'd given him some advice that he found kind ofdisturbing.
The prosecutor and they tellme, they tell me to stay out of EastCleveland.
Jesse said they toldhim,remember, Dixon's gotfriends.
They say you know Dina and youknow, youknow, theyhave, youknow, you havepeople.
They're not EastCleveland.
Theylike, we don't want to hear aboutyou.
It's something happened toyou.
They're out of EastCleveland.
Usually these cases of policebrutality, the ones we hearabout, the government response isconstipated.
Months, sometimes years ofstop,start, internalinvestigations, equivocating publicofficials, officers placed on deskduty, and then it just peedersout.
In Jesse'scase, there was none ofthat.
The officers who'd abused him had beenfired,convicted, andsentenced.
Jesse had gotten all thethings, the rare things people say they want in cases likethis.
Jesse hadwon. Andyet, here he was on highalert.
This whole situation with thepolice, it was notover.
Amanual, he lived in Cleveland for most of the year we were reportingthere.
And this is one of the cases he began to lookinto.
Manual interviewed police andprosecutors, and he interviewed JesseNickerson.
And that interview turned into a nearly year long adventure is too happy aword,misadventure, Iguess.
A year watching Jesse negotiate the afterwards of hiscase.
The push and pull of one man's relationship with the police in histown.
Here's amanual. Jesse Nickerson told me that he was sort ofrelieved, the officers who'd taken him to the park that night wereblack, and notwhite.
He feels like if they'd beenwhite, he probably would have gonesharp.
The first time wemet, we went over toFaras' HillPark, so he could walk me through what hadhappened.
He showed me the spot where he'd hidden behind atree, the place where he says the officers choked him until we blackedout.
They beat me righthere.
And look how far away it's from righthere.
We make it to the bottom of this big hill that he says the officers frowned down when Jessestops, and he points at something through thetrees.
Top of thehill, you see thepolice?
Ohyeah, see thepolice.
Way, way off in thedistance, Jesse spotted a copcar, a black foldexplorer, with police in block letters down theside.
Jesse had been calmly and casually reciting details of this allegedassault, but now he'suncomfortable.
That's the same truck I was in atnight.
That's the same truck I was in when they did that tome.
How do youknow? They only got one ofthem.
It'd been almost a year since the police took him to thepark.
And in thatyear, Jesse's had a persistent fear ofretaliation.
Because it feels likeeverybody, especially thecops, know him as the guy who sent officer to name Dixon toprison.
Right after receiving this policetruck, Jesse turns to me andsays, I got you as a witness in case anythinghappens.
But then when we make our way to the top of the hill and get to thetruck.
They just eat andlaunch.
Eat inJapan,mate. Who wasthat?
No,he...Yeah,he... he a goodofficer.
You a goodone? I'm from theneighborhood.
Cool. That's the officer that they had on TV doing the Instagramstuff.
Jesse doesn't know of this guy's realname.
He says everyone calls himNunu.
A few monthsback, Nunu will sort of ease Cleveland famous when he posted videos of himself messing around and singing in his policecruiser.
Jesse tellsme,Nunu, he's allright.
Jesse relax alittle. Jesse knows these Cleveland police department and they knowhim.
Partly because he's lived theirlives.
Partly because he's been arrested alot.
When wemet, Jesse was29.
He's spent time in prison on drug charges as well as for aggravated assault androbbery.
All of that happened when Jesse was in his late teens in early20s.
He's had more minor run-ins with the police sincethen.
Weedpossession, traffictickets, nothing tooserious.
Anyway, he's not worried aboutNunu.
The officer he is on the lookout for is a friend of the nameDixons.
An officer named WilburNeville's.
He told me a story about Neville's that was still stressing himout.
It happened about six monthsearlier.
At thetime, the name was out on bond awaiting trial for the incident with Jesse in thepark.
And Jesse would run into officer Neville's on thestreet.
I was at Chipotle's on theCoventry.
Coventry's a big busyroad.
Jesse and his girlfriend were heading back to their car after grabbing somefood.
When an ex-clever police car rolledup.
It was OfficerNeville's.
I was with my girlfriendAshley.
He just approached the car heliked.
He was going over toyou.
And helike, how'd thatbe?
Helike, followme. Neville's wanted Jesse to follow him down to a quieter part of thestreet.
Presumably so they could talk inprivate.
Jesse had no idea what this wasabout.
But his girlfriend Ashley didn't like the looks ofit.
She waslike, hellno. But Jesse toldAshley, miss a lot of peoplearound.
That's just see what hewants.
So they drovedown, porting to a lock at the end of the street and parked window towindow.
Police rendezvousstyle.
Neville's got right to thepoint.
Didn't helike,shit, what'sup?
You going to court on othername?
Don't go to court on thename,Dixon.
He meant the criminal case against the name for taking Jesse to thepark.
Neville's was telling Jesse to drop the wholething.
Don't show up forcourt.
I'mlike,shit, I'mlike,alright.
Iwas, I ain'tno, whatthis, I wasscared.
He askedme, what's mynumber?
He called me letter on that night when him and Dixon on thephone.
What did theysay? He wassaying, don't go tocourt.
Dixon. He wassaying, don't go tocourt.
He was saying that Neville's got a mission on cool andEC.
No one's going to court onme.
EC, EastCleveland. What do youmean, what do you mean cool andEC?
I don'tknow. He justsaid, he got a mission on cool andEC.
No one's going to court onme.
Neville was interviewed by the county prosecutor'soffice.
And he denied being on the line for thatcall.
He denied ever telling Jesse not to come tocourt.
He said Jesse asked him about thename.
He got Jesse'snumber, gave it to hisname, and that wasit.
But the name did callJesse.
And Jesse says he keptcalling.
He was calling me to just check onhim.
What'sup? What'sup? Youcool?
Anythingcool? Howoften?
Like every dayor?Yeah.
Imean,like,like, once or twice a week orsomething.
He was telling me to get out ofhere, to skip out oftime, telling me all type ofstuff.
Jesse felt like there was a threat behind all of hiscalls, sort of when I'm spoken orelse.
When the county prosecutors found out about thecalls, they werelike,wait, police officers are calling you and telling you to drop this wholething?
Yeah, that does not soundgood.
They made aplan. They had Jesse come into the justice center so they could record him calling thename.
The prosecutors recorded two calls to thename.
And on thesecalls, the name encouraged Jesse not to come tocourt, to get out oftown.
You don't come and they got to dismissit, the namesaid.
No, there's nocase. Even if theydon't.
These calls culminated in more felony charges for the nameDixon.
In addition to the other charges for taking Jesse to thepark, the name pleaded guilty to obstructingjustice.
Obviously,Neville's,though, the name's friend who Jesse says first approached him about dropping thecase.
Neville stayed on theforce.
And so a yearlater, he's the focus of a lot of Jesse's concern about thecops.
Jesse was sure Neville had it out forhim.
I still have to walkaround, drivearound, outhere.
With this other officer feeling like I don't tell something onhim.
I see him everyday. He muggedme, stare atme.
He looked at melike, he looked atme.
He looked at me with the look ofevil.
Like, he want to killme.
How do you seehim? Where do you seehim?
I see him everyday. Everywhere stores be fixing on thehouse.
He ridepast, ride up and down the street allday, allday.
I seehim. And every time I seehim, he give me that look of like he didn't know what itwould.
I honestly excrevened police department for an interview ofNeville's.
To ask him whether he's still hobbit of grudge againstJesse.
But the department refused to make Neville'savailable.
Part of me thought Jesse might be the last person that got to the messwith.
Imean, the entire city of EastCleveland.
I'm a cop who's going to pick on the guy who got two of her ownfired, who has alawyer, and he's probably an automatic news story of anything happens tohim.
Why would they pick onJesse?
Butthen, after he'd made our way back down to the parkinglot, another police carappeared, a black squadcar.
It turned towardsus, world laziline to the desertedlot, Mariastanding.
We both watched as it gotcloser.
Look, that'sNeville's.
That'sNeville's. I was suddenly aware of how alone Jesse and Iwere.
It was the middle of theafternoon, and nobody wasaround.
Others and Neville's didn't speedup.
He just headed towardsus.
His face partially hidden behind the glare on thewindshield.
When he got tous, Neville's made a deliberate circle aroundus, going maybe 10 miles anhour.
Neville's was abald, stocky blackguy.
He didn't return ourstairs.
He didn'treciprocate, but none I gavehim.
He looked straightahead.
I knew he wasn't eventhere.
Many droveaway. Maybe it was just a coincidence he showedup.
Maybenot. I watched Jesse's shift his weight back andforth.
One foot to theother, and build a theory in hishead.
Listen, then my other officers that was rightthere, they both knew who Iwas.
They called and told him that we was downhere.
You told me thatguy, one of those guys upthere, he's like a goodcop.
He's a goodguy.Yeah, that'sit.
I'm saying he's good because I knowhim, but these officers are good to who they workwith, who they out here in the fieldwith.
That's what they lawyersdo.
I say he was probably about to come downhere.
He came right downhere.
He came right downhere.
I'm braiding lean now because I'mthinking, he knows mycar.
He knows mycar. You're going to try and pull you over on the way out ofhere?
I don'tknow. I don't know what he's going todo.
It just scaresme. It scaresme.
Allright, so you want to get out ofhere?
Yeah. By thatpoint, we were both ready to get out ofhere.
A quick word about the city of EastCleveland.
Because everything that happened to Jesse happened in a city that doesn't function like a normalcity.
Forexample, when I first started reporting about the city's Cleveland PoliceDepartment, I couldn't get any official information about property crimes or violentcrimes, basicstuff.
I couldn't get the homicidesolverate, and we've been with a number ofhomicides.
After asking a bunch oftimes, the city's law director told me flat out that the city simplyquote, does not compile crimestatistics.
When I asked for disciplinary records forofficers, complaints andreports, I was initially told by city officials that the department apparently destroyed them in direct violation of the city's own record retentionpolicy.
After much badgering and a courtcomplaint, the city coughed up disciplinary records for just three of the 85 officers that have worked in East Cleveland for the last twoyears.
East Cleveland couldn't even give me records for officers who've been publiclydisciplined.
Not for a cop who sexually assaulted two women with a sex toy he found in their car during a trafficstop.
Not for a cop who's now the second in command who pleaded to tax crimes after running an illegal cigar business on theside.
And not for the namedDixon, who pleaded guilty to taking Jessica to thepark.
No disciplinary recordswhatsoever.
It felt like East Cleveland had given up on basicgovernance, and not just in an administrativesense.
I got the same feeling driving around thestreets.
Things are pretty badthere.
Oneday, a local took me down a street called Terror'sRoad.
We passed a 13-story apartmentbuilding, half a blocklong, completelygutted, nowindows, like something out of ironlegend, the debriseverywhere.
Then the guy I was with toldme, watchthis.
Pay attention rightnow.
At thispoint, he swirved off theroad, up over thecurb, and started driving down thesidewalk.
Jesus. Seethat?Yeah,wow.
He did this to get around the potholes in thestreet.
Thousandsopened. I saypotholes, but really we're talking aboutcraters.
Some almost four feetwide.
Underneath us were schools of tire tracks from other drivers who done the samething.
I got to pay for this car if it getbroke.
I'm driving on thatstreet.
East Cleveland got to thispoint, partly because of decades of mismanagement andcorruption.
Butalso, largely because of straight-up structuralracism.
East Cleveland is a blackcity.
It's90%black. And like many black neighborhoods andcities, it's been a victim ofblockbusting, whiteflight, jobloss, and a collapsing taxbase.
The poverty rate here is42%.
East Cleveland is the poorest city in the state ofOhio.
After the incident in thepark, Nixon challenged Jesse to afight, and Jesseran, gothurt.
After that whole thing becamepublic, Jesse decided he wanted to sue the policedepartment.
He hired a lawyer named ScottRamsey.
And Scott Ramsey approached the city to talk aboutthat.
And he was surprised to find that East Cleveland was very open tohim.
He got a meeting with themayor, and the mayor apologized for what happened toJesse.
Didn't try to soft-pedalit.
Said what the officers did waswrong.
But then Scott Ramseysays, when he in the mayor got to the subject of a possiblelawsuit.
There wasn't attitude that you can file suit if youwant.
And you can get a judgment if youwant.
You may get a bigjudgment, but it's just going to go into the stack over here that aren't gettingpaid.
Being such a poor city has countlessdisadvantages.
But it does have this oneadvantage.
When a personsues, you can turn your pockets inside out and show there's nothingthere.
You can't lose what you don'thave,right?
Scott Ramsey knew East Cleveland didn't haveinsurance, didn't have much inassets.
He knew the money just wasn'tthere.
He toldme, in a normalcity, it could get something like $100to $250,000.
But he didn't want Jesse to join the stack of East Cleveland's unpaidlawsuits.
And there is quite astack.
Judgment'sunpaid. Others stuck in a lab room for theappeals.
So Scott Ramsey and the city of East Cleveland skipped thelawsuit.
Instead, they made adeal.
The city cut a check forJesse, $25,000 and called it aday.
Atleast, the lawyer's called it aday.
The cops on the otherhand?
Well, you'llsee.More, after thebreak.
Getting to the bottom of the big pantstrend.
Whoa. And I'm finally replacing my vacuum with the recommendation I cantrust.
What will your subscription to the times have youdo?
Why not findout? With generous welcome offers that include a seven-day freetrial.
Go to nytimes.com slash freetrial.
Before we get back toJesse, I'm going to tell you about the case of ArnoldBlack.
Because it'll help you understand some of what's going to happen toJesse.
Andalso, because the case of Arnold Black iscrazy.
I don't want to reach for anotherdescriptor.
It starts out crazy and then it gets morecrazy.
First, acaveat. Arnold Black sued EastCleveland.
I read the courttranscript.
I interviewed hisattorney.
There was atrial. But EastCleveland, thedefendant, did not defenditself.
They did not offer evidence orwitnesses.
They did not cross-examineanyone.
So what I'm going to tell you isone-sided, which doesn't make ituntrue.
Everything I'm telling you now was testified to under oath in the Chaihoga County Court of CommonPlease.
Andagain, was not challenged by thecity.
Here's thestory. Thisguy, ArnoldBlack, who's 44 at thetime.
He's driving down Euclid Avenue in the middle of EastCleveland.
It'snighttime. He'd done a landscaping job near where his motherlived.
And he'd gone over to her house afterwards fordinner.
And now he was headinghome.
He's driving histruck, a green ChevySilverado.
He's got equipment in theback.
Weedwacker, leafblower,lawnmower.
And the cops pull himover.
One uniformed officer in acruiser.
The other officer is a detective in normalclothes, driving his normalcar.
The uniformedofficer, JonathanO'Leary, tells Arnold to get out of thetruck, pat himdown, cuffshim.
They take Arnold Black to the rear of histruck, sit him down on thebumper.
The cop in streetclothes, detective RandyHicks, aggressively searches thetruck, rips out the inside doorpanels.
Incourt, Arnold Black testified to thefollowing.
He said detective Hicks started asking him about drugs in EastCleveland.
And he told him he didn'tknow.
Because I don't selldrugs, I don't dodrugs, and I don't live in EastCleveland.
He said he was looking for a kilo ofcocaine, and he said to me that I wasn't in the righttruck.
Evidently, detective Hicks was looking for a drug dealer in a greentruck, but Arnold wasn'thim.
And that annoyedHicks.
Hesaid, you messed my nightup.
Arnold thought detective Hicks seemedoff, drunkprobably.
He keeps asking Arnold aboutdrugs.
Arnold is saying why you keep asking methat.
Then,wham! Detective Hicks punches Arnold in theface.
Arnold testifies that he then starts to kind of slide off thebumper.
Officer O'Leary props himup.
Detective Hicks hits him again in thehead.
These were hardhits. Hard enough that three yearslater, Arnold Black would need brain surgery to drain the fluid and blood from hisskull.
Evennow, he can't remember thingsproperly.
His speech isslowed. He has trouble controlling hisanger.
His mother and fiance say his personality ischanged.
The officers put him in thecruiser, taken back to the East Cleveland PoliceDepartment, where the jailis.
And they put him in a room that Arnold's attorney calls a storagelocker.
East Cleveland Police called it a holdingcell,tomato,tomato.
No one can decide what this room iscalled, but whatever itis, it is not a proper jailcell.
Nobed, notoilet, nowindow, nowater.
It's got abench, a few oldlockers, the tallkind, and some cleaningsupplies.
Brumes,mop, spuckets likethat.
They lock Arnold inthere.
That's according to histestimony.
Andnow, the timeline of all this is a littleunclear.
The police and county records say onething.
The trial transcript saysanother.
But if we go by therecords, atleast, this began on a Fridaynight.
Arnold says he could hear people talking andhollering, walkingaround.
He could hearkeys. I knocked on the door and wasscreaming.
Like I told them I had to use thebathroom.
And Isaid,anybody?Anybody?
No onecomes. Arnold pees in alocker.
Meanwhile, hisgirlfriend,Erica, is gettingworried.
Where ishe? She was supposed to hear fromhim.
She's calling around tofriends.
She calls thehospital.
Sundaycomes. Arnold says an officer opens a door to the room and askshim, does anyone know you're inhere?
Arnold saysno. The guysays,shh, and points to theceiling.
There's a microphone upthere.
Hesays, stepback. They won't pick upwhispers.
Then he takes his own cell phone from his backpocket.
Arnold gives the guard Erica'snumber, the guard dials thephone, hands it to Arnold and tells him to make itquick.
Arnold tellsErica, the cops beat meup.
I'm in EastCleveland,jail.
Come getme. Arnold says a bit later that same guy comes back and tosses him one of those little notecartons, like from a schoolcafeteria.
Ericaarrives, asks to seeArnold.
Now, this is according to hertestimony.
The cops at the reception window kind of look at each other for awhile.
Finally, someonesays, he's underinvestigation.
You can't seehim. He's underinvestigation.
She feels like something'swrong, like they're lying toher.
She calls Arnold'sfamily.
Arnold'sbrother, he took the stand at trialto.
Arnold's brother says he goes to East Cleveland and they tell him Arnold's inCleveland,jail.
So he drives over to Cleveland where they tell him there's no Arnold blackhere.
And he'slike, I wasjust, they just told me to comehere.
Theycheck, checkagain.
Nope. He goes back to East Cleveland again where they againsay, we don't know what to tellyou.
He ain'there. It's nowMonday, day three of the storageroom.
Arnold is in terrible pain from his headinjuries.
He can't sleepreally. He'shungry.
Incourt, Arnold said that aside from that one little milkcarton, they gave him nothing to eat ordrink.
The pee in the locker isstinking.
He's intenselyanxious.
He's worried the cops are going to do something to Erica because he calledher.
Feels like the room is closing in onhim.
Finally,again, if I'm reading the records right on dayfive, he's put in a van and taken to the county jail at the JusticeCenter.
He's held there a couple days until Erica comes to gethim, pays hisbond, $250.
When she sees him walking out of the countyjail, she says his head is soswollen, he looks like he's wearing ahelmet.
She takes himhome. Sometimelater, Arnold gets a letter in the mail telling him he's been indicted by a grand jury for possessing crackcocaine.
I waslike, charge withcocaine, Arnoldsaid.
I never had nococaine. How can I get charged withthat?
In the policereport, Officer O'Leary claims he found a baggy of crack under Arnold'stongue, and also that he had a baggy ofmarijuana.
I'll point out that the East Cleveland detective who testified about the crack before the grandjury, EricJones, was at that time part of a cabal of East Cleveland cops who were shaking down drug dealers stealing their money and falsifyingevidence.
He's now in federalprison, but Idigress.
In anycase, the prosecutor could see the circumstances of Arnold's arrest wereshady.
She'd been told about thebeating.
This file was going to betrouble.
They dropped thecharges.
Arnold hires a civil rightslawyer, BobbyDeCello.
Hesews. He sews the city of EastCleveland.
He sews the policechief, RalphSpots.
He sews OfficerO'Leary.
He sews detectiveHicks.
He's asking for $35million.
Bobby DeCello seeks a settlement from the city on behalf of ArnoldBlack.
DeCello gets much the same pitch Scott Ramsey got when he saw the settlement forJesse.
There's only so much we canafford.
DeCello'sresponse,though, verydifferent.
Here's BobbyDeCello. Weheard, as the chiefdefense, why are you doingthis?
We don't have anymoney.
Don't you see wherepoor, or poor cities streets aren't verygood.
Don't you see that we're in a stateof, what's called financial or fiscal emergency where the state of Ohio is running our books and has to authorize everyexpenditure.
You can't getpaid. Here's what we cando.
We can give you 50grand.
Would you be happy with 50grand?
Would that be goodenough?
And I wouldrespond. Let me get thisstraight.
You guys beat up myclient, put him in alocker, storage locker made in Pthere, and by the way fed him nothing into the cart in the milk for fourdays.
And you think I'm here just for 50grand,really?
I'm going to ask you to bear with me a little longer here because this story getsbetter, slashworse.
As they prepare fortrial, DeCello finds out there was dash cam footage of the arrest that shows detective Hicks beatingArnold.
And they also discover that that same raw video was later edited by the policealtered, so is not to show thebeating.
And listen up here that the police chief and the mayor knew aboutit.
They discovered that the East Cleveland police did this all thetime.
Infact, they discovered that nothing that happened to Arnold Black during the time he was secretly in East Cleveland's custody wasunusual.
Police in East Cleveland routinely pulled people over and roughed themup.
That had been the practice fordecades.
Routinely held them in jail for noreason.
Routinely alteredevidence.
The police chief routinely told officers to keep quiet about abuse to avoidlawsuits.
DeCello had found out about almost all this stuff from a most unlikelysource.
Detective RandyHicks, the guy who beat ArnoldBlack.
Hicks had walked off the job within days of Arnold'sarrest, hesaid.
As soon as he realized his bosses were going to blame everything onhim.
He admitted the department for about 15years, had other narcotics unit forsix, had earnedcommendations.
He wasn't a roguecop, hesaid.
He was doing what they'd all been taught to do in EastCleveland.
We asked the city's law director to respond to thisstory.
Shedidn't. Neither did officer O'Leary or detectiveHicks.
But then Mayor Gary Norton didrespond.
He said the characterizations from the civil trial are1,000%false.
He said all he knew about the dash cam video was thatquote, there was a gap in thetape.
Agap. And he said he didn't know about the holding sales slash storage locker at thejail, which was downstairs from hisoffice.
I just didn'tknow. I reallydidn't.
The then police chief Ralph Spots also called usback.
Hesaid,diddo. There was no such culture of aggression within the policedepartment.
Hesaid, no pattern of altering evidence or of hidingabuse.
Mr. Spots said detective Hicks was just shifting blame for his own personalwrongdoing.
The civil lawsuit drags on years goby.
But at no point is East Cleveland ever hand overdiscovery.
Not one piece ofpaper. Never mind the dash cam video or personnel records or logs from thejail.
Didcello never even gets a policereport.
The city law director claims she doesn't know where anythingis.
They simply have nothing to handover.
It's egregious enough this refusal to engage that the judge finally issues a rulingsaying,OK, EastCleveland, you are now barred from introducing any evidence oftrial.
So we're going to have atrial, but you cannot defendyourself.
You've forfeited thatright.
The city appeals thisruling.
They appealonce,twice, they getdenied.
In2016, four years after Arnold's beating andarrest, they finally go totrial.
And the only person who shows up for the otherside, the only person is former East Cleveland detective RandyHicks.
No city lawdirector, no policechief, nomayor, just Randy Hicks all by himself and he admitseverything.
There's this extraordinary part of the trial transcript in which Didcello reads a long list of all the things officers in East Cleveland did and Hicks confirmsit, all ofit.
Didcello, numberfour, officer Hicks was and his fellow officers were required by chief spots to follow a custom of using violence in the city of EastCleveland, which had officers using force on civilians to compel statements from them to establish control to instill fear and submission and to show dominance during arrests and trafficstops.
Thejudge, is thattrue?
Hicks,yes, yourhonor.
A jury awarded Arnold Black $22 million in compensatory impunitivedamages, a $22 millionjudgment.
Victory,right? Notexactly,because, getthis, the morning oftrial, about an hour and a half before itstarted, the city's lawyer filed a notice of appeal with the Ohio SupremeCourt.
That's a noticesaying,hey, we're planning on filing something with youguys.
The city had assumed that the notice would stop the clock on the trial and retroactively itdid.
An appeals court later ruled that the trial should not have gone forward with that noticepending.
So thatnow, as I write this in2018, the verdict in Arnold Black's case has beenoverturned.
Now, Didcello is the oneappealing.
He's not sure if he'llprevail.
You might have to retry thiscase.
Civil lawsuits are supposed to lead toreform.
That's thehope. The city will fix the problems that are costing it a lot ofmoney.
We talk to 11 attorneys who do civil rights cases in KaiohogaCounty.
One attorneysaid,yeah, bringit.
I have no problem pulling the trigger against EastCleveland.
The other 10attorneys, noway, theysaid.
It's not worthit, saidone.
I have a business torun, saidanother.
Weheard, there's noreward.
Weheard, it's abitch. Weheard, I turned down any case that comes from East Cleveland and it'sheartbreaking.
In otherwords, Arnold Black is a cautionarytale, which makes DeCellonuts.
He doesn't see it thatway.
And he says Arnold Black doesn'teither.
The city hasn't paid Arnold Black adime, but he has gotten quite a bit of money as a result of alawsuit.
From a funding company that loans plaintiffs money based on likelyverdicts, that's a whole financial industryapparently.
But more to thepoint, DeCellosays, there's now a public record of how East Cleveland was running its policedepartment.
Thiscase, thisverdict, was nationalnews.
Because it went totrial, I am talking about it rightnow.
I askedDeCello, can you understand though how someone like Jesse Nicherson might not want to spend six plus years fighting thecity, especially if they livethere?
DeCellosaid,yeah, but if a client did tell himthat, he'd push back with a speech that goes something likethis.
We are the police of the police by constitutionalmandate.
ThankGod. This has got to beabout, do you understand what'shappening?
Do you understand what the lives are that are at stakehere?
It does impact usall. You're the guy who snaked out and youknow, we've got out of the way of the bully for a fewbucks.
Goodjob. But did your community matter toyou?
And if the response comesback,no, itdoesn't.
I don't want to doit. Then I'm duty bound to listen to myclient.
I getthat. But understand what's going to continue and we'll have thatconversation, won'twe?
If we're responsible aboutit, I would with my own brother orsister.
Lookbro, I getit. You don't want to be in thefight.
But here's what's going tohappen.
The bully down the street is going to do this again and again andagain.
Can you live in thattown?
If you settle forpeanuts, like Jessedid, Jichillosays, you're not going to get realchange.
You're going to getpeanuts.
And now you're living in your same town along with the same people you're scaredof.
Right. And that's where Jesseis.
Emmanuel is going to take it fromhere.
About three weeks after we met up in thepark, I wanted to check in with Jesse to see how he wasdoing.
See if he'd had any more run-ins with his Clevelandpolice.
At first I couldn't get a hold ofhim.
But I got through to hisgirlfriend,Ashley.
She launched into a wholething.
Something had happened between Jesse and the police on the Fourth ofJuly.
The police had rough Jesseup.
As shesaid, Jesse wanted to tell me aboutit.
He had a newphone. She gave me thenumber, which I dialedimmediately.
Ashley told me somethingcrazy.
She told me that I was just going to bethere.
A couple daysago. On the Fourth ofJuly, Jesse's street threw a blockparty.
Neighbours put out road cones and closed off thestreet.
About 70 people cameout.
Jesse says it was theusual.
Kids playingbasketball, peoplegrilling,fireworks.
Jesse and his friends helped set itup.
This party went on all day and into theevening.
Aroundmidnight, the police showedup.
Setting off fireworks without a permit is a legal and Iowe.
You can't just block off thestreet.
So the police said it was time to clearout.
People started headinghome.
Jesse says he and his friends were dragging theirfeet, messing around with abasketball, giving the cops aattitude.
When, cryingabruptly, a policeofficer, an olderguy, yelled through thecrowd, you in the redshirt, get the fuck out of theV.C.
I lookaround. I look down at myshirt.
I'm the only one with a red shirton.
Jesse and some of his friends confronted theofficer.
A couple of people we have inwords, we eat to cleanit.
We tellthem,like,man, what is alldoing?
We ain't doingnothing.
It's aholiday. It's about 40 kids outhere.
So we just tellthem,like,listen, we ain't doing nothingaround.
The other officer waslike,yeah, set the fuckup.
I'mlike, oh the fuck is fuckingstupid.
How has Niggit inboth? I'm not sure if it's such a thing as the opposite to staying out of theseCleveland.
But stepping up to an East Cleveland police officer and talking like this might beit.
They both told us that itrushed.
There's body cam footage from three differentofficers.
A lot of it is blurry anddark, but I've watched it over andover.
According to a policereport, Jesse's spat on anofficer.
But you can't see that on the bodycam.
Instead, it seems different police just honed in onJesse.
There's a crowd ofpeople, but Jesse seems to be the one theywant.
In the body camfootage, you see Jesse and some of his friends talking back to the policeofficers.
Jesse's in the rear of thegroup.
At onepoint, he starts to backaway, puts his hands in the airlike,fine, forgetthis, I'm out ofhere.
And just then one of the officers rushesin, bypasses all the other guys standing in front of Jesse and grabshim.
Another officer grabs Jessetoo.
They cuffhim, drag him towards a policecar.
The police seemfrantic, but crowd of people on the street is screaming at theofficers, cursingthem.
The situation feels like a good boylow.
Once they get to the policecar, it's so chaotic you can't tell exactly what'shappening.
But there's a fud which is maybe Jesse slamming into the cardoor.
Then he startsscreaming, myarm, myarm.
His shoulder wasinjured.
Jesse's lying on the ground on hisstomach, twisting away from his hurtshoulder, his head almost underneath thetailpipe.
And a cop who seems to knowJesse, or at least Jesse'sname, starts telling him to getup.
AndJesse, now what a fuck you do that and that Jesse gets yourself in yourcamera.
You get it toyourself,Jesse, youfell, we watched youfall.
It's not clear whether the officer is saying this because Jesse heard himself trying to scrum away from thecops.
And now the officers are trying to make sure that fact gets recorded on thebodycams.
Or whether the police got rough trying to shove Jesse in thecar.
And now they're trying to cover forthemselves.
Ten minuteslater, EMT'sarrive.
They take Jesse to the hospital where he spends thenight.
The nextmorning, Jesse wakes to find five misdemeanor tickets on the blanket of his hospitalbed.
Failed todisperse, disolidconduct, resistingarrest, assault andmenacing.
When I talked to Jesse on thephone, I could hear how much he wanted to fightback.
Butalso, I could hear how vulnerable hefell.
It's like every time I getapproached, I got to respect these people to put their hands onme.
That's how I got to look at itnow.
I got to appear myselftoday.
I'm appearing myselftoday.
I know that every time they feelit, they feelit.
I thought it was overwith, but as yousee, it's not overwith.
It's not overwith. I thought it was myfault.
I said I went over to thesituation.
I said I said I went to court inorder.
What do you mean you used up a son ofGod?
You think you were runningout?
Yeah, because you see what's happeningnow.
I'm not doingshit, but I'm gettingharassed.
Forme, forme, I feelterrible.
So I regretit. It feels like you don't see an end tothis.
You think this is going to be just leaving itout.
This is thebeginning. This is thebeginning.
Just you went to East Cleveland's courthouse about a week later for his arrangement on the five charges for the fourthJuly.
The courthouse is just one room in EastCleveland, small cityhall.
We're almost every citydepartment, including the policedepartment, is backed into a squat to a half-storybuilding.
I called up with Jesse before courtstarted, right outside thecourtroom.
Jesse's lawyer Scott Ramsay couldn't be there thatday, but he told Jesse no bigdeal.
He's pleading notguilty.
Don't talk toomuch. Nothing serious is going to happentoday.
Jesse was in goodspirits, laughing andjoking.
He took it in stride with one of the bailiffs told him for ripped jeansshorts.
He had on those weren't going to go over to well in thecourtroom.
I got to get somepants. They are letting me bethere, letting me comein.
Jesse quickly went home to change and then cameback.
We took our seats and the court gotstarted.
The judge began to spin through thecases, mostly verysmall, traffic tickets andstuff.
So have you ever had no higherlicense?
Yes. After about 30 minutes orso, Jesse goneup, maln something tomean, and walked down thecourtroom.
It's felt I've beenbuzzing, so I figured he'd left to make acall.
Ten minutes went by and he hadn't comeback.
Ben20, Ben30. Courtfinished, still noJesse.
Evenstranger, his case had never beencalled.
I tried hisphone, but it went straight tovoicemail.
Called hisgirlfriend,Ashley, noanswer.
I searched the wholebuilding.
Thehallways, thebathrooms, the parkinglot.
Jesse wasnowhere. Butwhy?
Imean,Jesse, with his criminalhistory, had to know that not showing up forcourt, might get him in arestaurant.
So why would he showup? Take the time to go home and changeclothes.
Come back and then leaveagain.
I askedaround. Anyone I fought might know what was goingon.
I'm going to say I'm a jack and he's likegold.
He had like red sneakerson.
Finally, a bathe of told me he's seen Jesse walk out of thecourtroom.
He came out in the court in the hallway to tell his wife to tell him when he was talking tohim.
And then afterthat, the handcuffed him and took himdownstairs.
I don't know what charge they charged him onwhite.
So, this isbullet, what Iknow.
Okay, Jesse has beenarrested.
Now I need to find outwhy.
I went to the policestation.
A stone woman at the window with you to tell me what he has been arrestedfor.
It's a violation of hisprivacy, shesaid, which by theway, Ichecked.
It'snot. Then she told me who I have to talk to the chief ofpolice.
Was hein?No, shesaid. A littlelater, I asked a different person at that samewindow.
A young police officer I thought might be morehelpful.
Nope. He said he wasn't allowed to tell me what the chargeswere.
Even though I was areporter.
Department ofpolicy.Again, Ichecked.
It'snot. I'm not to the judge'sdoor.
Maybe they couldhelp. But everyone was gone for theday.
Theyleft.Yeah,yeah. The clothes are always in thecloset.
Okay. All duerespect. It was three o'clock in theafternoon.
Goodafternoon,people.
You've been closed off with all theland.
I may be a servicethief.
I made a bunch of calls to City Hall the nextday.
So they seem to sick of me calling as I wasasking.
Did here's a raiment happenalready?
According to thefiles,yes, itdid.
Was there like a bondset?
We don't get that informationout,sir.
It should be publicinformation,right?
Sir, we don't get that information out ontelephone.
Okay. Can Iask? Can I justask?
Whynot? After awhile, I got with the heavens on thephone.
The city's lawdirector.
She didn't hang up on me or ignore my arguments about things being publicrecord.
She wasnice. Lots of polite andhums.
Well, I didn't want to berecorded, but she did answer myquestions.
She told me Jessie had been arrested and charged with misdemeanors for a completely differentcase.
But a weekearlier, Jessie had yelled at an intimidated andofficer.
Instead of arresting Jessiethen, but police had put a warrant out for hisarrest.
After we'd been talking a coupleminutes, we were asked if I couldhold.
She muttered something about there being some other details as I heard her rufflefuss inpapers.
We'll have said that after thearrest, Jessie had hit his head on the ground on the way to thejail.
But he deliberately peed himself in hiscell.
But Jessie had been taken to the hospital for a psychologicalevaluation.
Literally, I'm just gettingout.
Wait, so you just left the jail rightnow?
I just left thejail. Four days went by before I heard from Jessieagain.
I started to ask him about thearrests, about what Willa toldme, but Jessie cut meoff.
He said he didn't have time to get intothat.
He had something more important to tellme.
Listen,listen,listen,listen.
When I was in thejail, when I was in thejail, it put me in the house andsaid,right, he didn't have theirblockers.
There's nobathroom. So I'm in his room for twodays.
Well, I have to be at one force to use myfoot, wipe myass, like I'm suppressingup.
Like I'm some type of hooligan andstuff.
I had their literally pissed andshakin' alocker.
You put down some pee andwhat?
I had their pissed andshakin' a lockerroom.
Jessie was telling me that the police would put him in the very same room that Arnold Black had been locked in fordays.
The questionwas, would anyonecare?
Next time onSerial. Serial is produced by JulieSnyder, a manual Jochi Ben Calhoun and me with additional reporting by EdelieSkovsky.
Editing on this episode from IraGlass.
When he danger-field is our digitaleditor, research and fact-checking by BenFalen, sound design and mix by StoNelson.
Additional production from KateBelinsky.
Music clearance by AnthonyRoman.
Sutland is our director ofoperations.
The serial staff includes EmilyCondon, JulieWhitaker, CassieHowley, FrancisSwanson, and MattTierney.
Our music is by Adam Dorne and HalWilner, with additional music from MattMcGinley, FritzMyers, NickThorburn, and WestSchwartz.
Our theme song is by Nick Thorburn and Remix by AdamDorne.
Special thanks this episode to MelissaGeorge's, EdLittle, EricBrewer, WilliamVodrie, NancyJamison, MollyMurphy, Chris Link at theACLU, and Colleen Cotter at Legal Aid Society ofCleveland.
Thanks also to Pandora for airing theshow.
The art on our website was made by MartinezE.B., he created the mural for thisepisode, and Moth Studio did theanimation.
Please check it out on ourwebsite,serialpodcast.org.
That'sserialpodcast.org, where you can also sign up for our email newsletter and be notified when new episodes arereleased.
