White v. City of Cleveland

Decision Date23 December 2020
Docket NumberCASE NO. 1:17-CV-01165
PartiesDALONTE WHITE, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CLEVELAND, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

JUDGE PAMELA A. BARKER

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION AND ORDER

This matter comes before the Court upon the Motions for Summary Judgment of Defendants David Lam, Thomas Shoulders, John Kubas, David Santiago, Robert Beveridge, Michael Schade, and the City of Cleveland (collectively, "Defendants"), all of which were filed on May 4, 2020. (Doc. Nos. 191, 193, 195, 197, 199.) Plaintiff Dalonte White ("White") filed a consolidated brief in opposition to Defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment on June 17, 2020, to which Defendants replied on July 15, 2020. (Doc. Nos. 247, 262-66.)

Also, currently pending is White's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, which seeks summary judgment on the question of liability on White's Claims 9 and 10 against John Kubas and David Santiago in their personal and official capacities. (Doc. No. 205.) The City of Cleveland filed a brief in opposition to White's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on June 17, 2020, to which White replied on July 15, 2020. (Doc. Nos. 249, 267.) John Kubas and David Santiago filed a joint brief in opposition to White's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on June 18, 2020, to which White replied on July 16, 2020. (Doc. Nos. 250, 268.)

For the following reasons, Defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment (Doc. Nos. 191, 193, 195, 197, 199) are GRANTED as to White's claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and DENIED as to White's claims under state law. White's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 205) is DENIED. The remainder of the case is REMANDED to the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, from which it was removed.

I. Background
a. Factual Background

Shortly after 6 p.m. on April 21, 2015, Patrol Officers Donato Daugenti ("Daugenti") and Thomas Harrigan ("Harrigan") received a radio assignment to respond to an incident involving a female that had been shot at 3255 West 54th Street, Cleveland, Ohio. (Doc. No. 223-11 at PageID# 7387.) According to Daugenti's report, after arriving on the scene, he spoke to two of the victims, Savannah LaForce ("LaForce") and Zachary Hale ("Hale").1 (Id. at PageID#s 7387-88.)

LaForce stated that she was visiting her aunt, Colleen Allums ("Allums"), and that, while she was talking with Allums in the living room, her brother, Hale, entered the residence. (Id. at PageID# 7387.) After Hale walked in, three unknown males also entered, and one of them ("Suspect #1") pulled out a handgun and stated, "Nobody move." (Id.) Another one of the unknown individuals ("Suspect #2") grabbed LaForce's cell phone from her hand and then stood by the door with the third individual ("Suspect #3") so that nobody could leave. (Id.) Suspect #1 then began to strike Allums repeatedly on her head with his gun. (Id.) Subsequently, Allums's dogs came from another room and started to attack Suspect #1, who began shooting at the dogs in response. (Id.) Suspects #2 and#3 then fled the residence, after which Suspect #1 started to hit Allums again. (Id.) At that point, LaForce also fled with her brother. (Id. at PageID#s 7387-88.)

According to Hale, all three suspects began following him while he was walking to Allums's house to meet up with his sister, LaForce. (Id. at PageID# 7388.) They then followed right behind him when he entered Allums's residence. (Id.) Hale's description of events inside the residence is then largely consistent with LaForce's statement. Hale also stated, however, that upon entering the residence, Suspect #1 stated, "Where is the money? We want everything," to which Allums responded that she did not have any money before Suspect #1 started striking her with his gun. (Id.) According to Daugenti's report, Hale also stated that one of Allums's dogs began biting Suspect #1's leg and that Suspect #1 shot several times at the dog in an attempt to get the dog off of him, which made the dog flee from the room. (Id.)

Shortly after Daugenti and Harrigan arrived on the scene, EMS transported Allums to a hospital to treat a gunshot wound to her right shoulder and several lacerations to her head and face. (Id. at PageID#s 7387-88.) As such, no statement was taken from her at that time.

Daugenti's report also included a description of the suspects' physical characteristics. Suspect #1 was described as a black male who was approximately eighteen to twenty years old, 200 to 250 lbs., and 6' to 6'1". (Id. at PageID# 7378; Doc. No. 223-10 at PageID# 7367.) Suspect #2 was described as a black male who was approximately eighteen to nineteen years old, 130 lbs., and 5'6". (Doc. No. 223-10 at PageID# 7369; Doc. No. 223-11 at Page ID# 7379.) Suspect #3 was described as a black male who was approximately eighteen to nineteen years old, 150 lbs., and 5'9". (Doc. No. 223-10 at PageID# 7369; Doc. No. 223-11 at Page ID# 7379.) However, it is not clear who this information came from, as there was another witness besides Hale and LaForce identified in thereport. Specifically, Daugenti noted that he also spoke with John Hale, who was playing basketball in the area and observed the three suspects enter and then run from Allums's residence. (Doc. No. 223-11 at PageID# 7388.)

After Daugenti and Harrigan had already started their report and taken LaForce's and Hale's initial statements, Defendant Detective David Lam ("Lam"), Defendant Sergeant Thomas Shoulders ("Shoulders"), and Detective Cynthia Moore ("Moore") arrived on the scene. (Doc. No. 191-2 at ¶ 5; Doc. No. 223-1 at 127:12-23.) Although Lam had only joined the detective bureau about a month earlier, Shoulders assigned Lam to act as lead detective under Shoulders's supervision. (Doc. No. 191-2 at ¶ 7; Doc. No. 223-1 at 157:14-158:25.) Upon arrival, Lam and the other officers and detectives present canvassed the neighborhood and located a surveillance camera mounted on the home of a neighbor. (Doc. No. 223-11 at PageID# 7389.) The video showed a black male with dreadlocks wearing a dark colored North Face jacket, dark colored pants, and white shoes limping away from Allums's residence and concealing a firearm in his waistband. (Id.) Consistent with LaForce's and Hale's statements and the video of the suspect limping, someone requested that dispatch watch for hospital visits involving an individual with a gunshot wound or dog bites to the foot or leg. (Doc. No. 191-2 at ¶ 10.)

While on the scene, Lam also talked to Defendant Patrol Officer Michael Schade ("Schade"), who stated that White and one other individual, Rayvion Edwards ("Edwards"), were suspects in an aggravated menacing complaint in the area of West 59th Street that had occurred the past weekend. (Doc. No. 223-11 at PageID# 7389.) Schade further stated that it was possible that the Allums home invasion was related to that aggravated menacing complaint. (Id.) Lam's report indicates that the report number for the aggravated menacing incident was possibly Report No. 2015 082488. (Id.)However, Report No. 2015 082488 does not include any mention of White, involved an incident that occurred on March 26, 2015 (not the weekend immediately preceding the Allums's home invasion), and the incident did not occur near West 59th Street. (Doc. No. 223-18.) Rather, the aggravated menacing complaint Schade was most likely referencing was documented in Report No. 2015 108018. (Doc. No. 225-1 at 385:16-24.) According to Report No. 2015 108018, on April 19, 2015, White, Edwards, and one other individual known as "Shartrell" approached a game of basketball occurring in front of a house in the West 59th Street area. (Doc. No. 225-17 at PageID# 8568.) Shartrell accused one of the individuals in front of the house of being in the "BBE" gang, and Edwards later produced a gun and pointed it at two people who came out of the house and threatened to fight them. (Id.) However, the report specifically states that White was not involved in the menacing and had attempted to convince Edwards and Shartrell that the individual they accused of being in another gang was not who they thought. (Id.) Lam does not believe that he had ever seen this second report, Report No. 2015 108018, until it was shown to him in 2020, as it was not located in his file and, because White was not a named suspect or victim in the case, it would not have come up on a search for his name. (Doc. No. 191-2 at ¶ 11.)

On April 22, 2015, the day after the Allums's home invasion, Lam and Shoulders spoke to Defendant Patrol Officer Robert Beveridge ("Beveridge"), who was known to be knowledgeable of criminal activity in the neighborhood, including gang affiliations. (Id. at ¶ 12.) After being advised of the description of the suspects, Beveridge identified White, as well as two other young males, as being part of the Hungry Money Family or Heartless Money Family ("HMF") gang that had claimed the neighborhood, specifically the area of West 58th Street and Storer Avenue. (Id.; Doc. No. 223-11 at PageID# 7389.) Beveridge also told Lam that the HMF gang was known to rob people in theneighborhood, although Lam did not recall any comments by Beveridge that any HMF members had actually been convicted of robbing anyone. (Doc. No. 223-1 at 169:25-171:5.) At his deposition, Beveridge admitted that he could not recall any crimes for which HMF members had been charged, but believed its members were connected to several criminal violations and recalled one incident in which a member was shot at. (Doc. No. 226-1 at 98:8-101:10.)

Based on the information from Beveridge, Lam created three photo arrays, one for White and one for each of the other two individuals identified by Beveridge. (Doc. No. 223-1 at 171:21-172:4.)2 In the photo array containing White's picture, he is the only individual with dreadlocks. (See Doc. No. 210-11 at PageID#s 6424-25.) According to Lam, it was difficult to find photos of individuals with hairstyles that matched...

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