Octogenarian Couple Claims Violent Home Invasion by Cleveland Clinic Cops, Appeals Court Rules Lawsuit Can Move Forward

A couple in their eighties in Cleveland is suing
the police department of Cleveland Clinic over a 2011 incident
where cops followed their 38-year-old son home over minor traffic
violations allegedly without turning their sirens or lights on.

A federal judge dismissed the couple’s lawsuit in January 2013,
but an appeals court ruled on
Monday that the couple’s claims of illegal home entry and
intentional infliction of emotional distress could move forward
even as it sided with the federal judge in dismissing the son’s and
the couple’s assault claims because of limits placed by the 1994
Supreme Court decision Heck v.
Humphrey.

Here is the appeals court’s telling of the couple’s claims:

Plaintiffs allege that Aaron Hayward was driving home from his
parents’ store early in the morning, around 4:00 a.m. on January
23, 2011, when a CCPD SUV pulled up behind him and followed him
until he turned into his driveway and parked his car. Up to this
point, the officer’s marked SUV neither sounded a siren nor flashed
its lights. The officer yelled, “Hey you, come over here, boy,” at
Aaron as he exited his car and entered the home that he shared with
his parents, Annie and Essex Hayward. (R. 1, Compl., at
12.)¹ Defendants
admit that up to the time Aaron entered the home, it was not
communicated to Aaron that he was under arrest.

When Aaron ignored the officer’s order, the officer radioed for
additional help, claiming that he was attempting to make a traffic
stop, but did not indicate that there was any danger to himself or
any individuals inside the home. Approximately ten to fifteen
minutes later, five additional officers arrived at the scene. They
began pounding on the Haywards’ front door, demanding that they
“open the fucking door.” (R. 30, Second Am. Compl., at 477.)
Plaintiffs Annie and Essex Hayward awoke to the sounds of the
pounding on the door. Once downstairs, they saw blue and red
flashing lights and several men who appeared to be police officers.
Plaintiff Essex Hayward opened the main, wooden door to their home
and Defendants continued trying to force their way through the
outer security door. At that time, realizing that the men were
Cleveland Clinic security officers, Essex Hayward mentioned calling
the actual Cleveland police to their home. At some point during
this encounter, Plaintiffs realized that the officers were wearing
police badges depicting the Ohio state seal.

Plaintiffs shut the main, wooden door once again
and Defendants forced open the outer security door by breaking its
glass. At this time, the outer security door now ajar, Aaron used
his foot and body to prevent the officers from breaking down the
main door. So the officers became more aggressive in attempting to
enter the home. They used the butt of a shotgun to shatter the main
door’s small window. Once that occurred, Annie and Essex called
911. One of the officers then stuck a taser through the shattered
window and blindly fired into Plaintiffs’ home. Eventually,
Defendants struck Aaron with taser probes, which he was able to
remove from his body. The officer blindly deployed the taser for a
second time, striking Aaron again and this time causing him to fall
to the ground. Once Aaron was no longer pressed up against the
wooden door, Defendants broke through the main door and poured into
Plaintiffs’ home. They tased Aaron again to gain control, as he
continued struggling to defend and protect himself and his parents.
Defendants then dragged Aaron outside to the driveway, where they
allegedly beat him with their batons, kicked him in the head and
other parts of his body, stunned him with a taser, and called him a
“black nigger” before they handcuffed and officially arrested him.
(Id. at 469.) Plaintiffs claim that Aaron was tased altogether
in excess of thirty seconds.

At this point, the officers demanded identification from Annie
and Essex. After Essex questioned their demand, at least one of the
officers threatened to punch Annie and Essex in the face, break
their teeth, and take them to jail if they failed to comply with
the order and present identification.

The appeals court did find that the couple had pleaded enough
facts to make a plausible claim that the police’s action “was so
extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible bounds of
decency and was such that it can be considered as utterly
intolerable in a civilized community.”

The Cleveland Clinic Police Department is
apparently the third largest police force in Northeast Ohio
and, according to the department, each year getting more than
100,000 calls, making 230 arrests, and more than 180 traffic
stops.