Guardian - When a man pointing a Glock pistol approached Gregory Love’s car in downtown Cleveland late one night, Love did the only sensible thing possible, he says: he put up his hands and decided to let the man have what he wanted.
But Vincent Montague shot him in the chest anyway, according to Love, before having the 29-year-old forcibly removed from his silver Range Rover and his hands fastened together behind his back.
Blood from the bullet wound seeped through Love’s white T-shirt. He grew colder, despite the warm June air. “I actually thought I was going to die,” Love told the Guardian. “I felt faint. I saw blood coming from my chest. I thought he was just going to kill me right there.”
Eighteen months later, Love recalls his alleged assailant clearly: he was wearing the uniform of the Cleveland Division of Police. The only person prosecuted following the altercation was Love, who was fined $100 for a traffic violation. Montague was suspended from work for a day.
Brandon Vason, who knew Love and was in the area, walked up and remonstrated. Other police officers punched Vason in the head and threw him to the ground, Vason alleges. Then, he says, they kicked him, cuffed him, put him in the back of a patrol car, and drove him away.
The men, who are both black, are now suing the city, police chief Calvin Williams and officers involved through the federal courts, claiming civil rights violations.
Their case is just one among a number that caused Eric Holder, the US
attorney general, to sharply censure the Cleveland department this week.
A damning report by his Justice Department accused city officers of being “chaotic and dangerous” in their use of force.
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