Canton OH Police CCW Holder Encounter

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Thanks for posting this...I missed the first one.

Spats - sounds a whole lot like the city of Canton would benifit enormously if you spent a few months up this way and told them how to run things!

I'm a half hour North of Canton & there's just my wife and the two dogs and myself in the house. You could have your choice of three spare bedrooms to bunk in ;)
 
Hi everyone. I've enjoyed reading the forums on this case. I can probably answer most questions about the case, I've been following it closely and was in court on Wednesday.

The criminal complaint is a sworn document, sworn to under oath by the police officers. This criminal complaint stated that Mr. Bartlett "failed to notify officers that he had a cww permit and a gun until a pat down search was conducted." Obviously, anyone who has seen the video knows that this is not true. Bartlett notified Harless, then, because of the notification, Harless pushed Bartlett against his car and grabbed his gun. On the stand, Diels did admit that the sworn criminal complaint was not true.

Also, the narrative supplemental report stated that Bartlett did not inform officers he had a CCW permit "until he was seated in the rear seat of the cruiser" and that the officers "had to retrieve his CCW permit from his wallet." Again, these statements obviously were not true.

The Ohio Statute says that a person must inform a law enforcement officer that they have a concealed handgun license and are armed when "stopped for a law enforcement purpose" and "approached by a law enforcemnt officer." At the suppression hearing, Diels (the guy who crawled in the back seat) stated, a few times, that he did not speak to Bartlett, did not interact with Bartlett, and did not approach Bartlett. Wednesday, his story changed. But the judge had already ruled (following the suppression hearing) that Diels' search of the backseat of the car violated Bartlett's fourth amendment rights. Part of the statements from the judge in ruling on the case, and dismissing it, was that requiring Bartlett to notify Diels would have been like the "fruit of the poisonous tree." So, since there was no requirement for Bartlett to notify Diels, and the video clearly shows Bartlett notifying Harless - no reasonable jury could find Bartlett guilty, and the charges were dismissed.

A good day for Ohio Concealed Carry.
 
majmack

Hi everyone. I've enjoyed reading the forums on this case. I can probably answer most questions about the case, I've been following it closely and was in court on Wednesday.
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Thank You because it would take me a long time to catch up on this thread.

I read the rest of your post, and thanks for the info. Please keep us posted, majmack.
 
Glad to have you majmack. Thank You for the update.

Again, please keep us informed of further activities.

Too, where abouts are you in eastern Ohio?

I'm in Fairfield Co. right on the Hocking Co line.
 
Hi Shortwave.

I'm in Trumbull County. My father lives down in Washington County, so I travel down along the river pretty often.
 
Since Harless has a documented history of this type of behavior and the Canton "Management" failed to act, can they be sued personnally?

I know that corporate managers can be sued seperately and severally for misconduct when conducting corporate business. Can this technique be applied to government officials when they fail to act?
 
Welcome to The Firing Line, majmack! As much as I'm enjoying speculating on this, it's really nice to have someone around that was actually there.

Hal said:
Spats - sounds a whole lot like the city of Canton would benifit enormously if you spent a few months up this way and told them how to run things!

I'm a half hour North of Canton & there's just my wife and the two dogs and myself in the house. You could have your choice of three spare bedrooms to bunk in ;)
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Thank you, Hal! That's very kind of you. I've spent most of my legal career defending police officers, so you just let them know that I'm available for the right price! ;)

ltc444 said:
Since Harless has a documented history of this type of behavior and the Canton "Management" failed to act, can they be sued personnally?

I know that corporate managers can be sued seperately and severally for misconduct when conducting corporate business. Can this technique be applied to government officials when they fail to act?
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Yes, no, and maybe. (Be warned: here comes some hair-splitting.)

From the perspective of the Plaintiff's attorney, there are two goals to litigation under 42 USC 1983: (1) Make the client whole; and (2) prevent violations in the future. Both of these are accomplished (primarily) by way of money. I haven't checked on how things run in the 6th Circuit, but in the 8th, cities are immune from punitive damages. Compensatory damages are available as against cities, but no punitives. So how does a plaintiff get punitives? By suing officers individually and officially, and naming the City as a defendant as well. That's why you see cases with names like, "John Doe v. The City of Bucksnort, James Baxter, in his individual and official capacities, Ralph Smith, in his individual and official capacities . . . "

Can "management" be sued individually? Yes, but the real question is whether they can be successfully sued. The Plaintiff could bring actions against Harless' superiors personally for things like: (1) failure to train; and (2) failure to supervise. Without doing some real trial-prep kind of discovery, I can't tell you whether he could succeed in those lawsuits, though.

As for the city itself (& here's where it gets interesting for me), . . . Even assuming that there has been a violation of the Plaintiff's rights, the City of Canton will not be held liable for an isolated incident of a tortfeasor (Harless), unless the tortfeasor is a policymaker. I have seen no indication that Harless is a policymaker. On the other hand, if the Plaintiff can show a "policy, practice or custom," on the part of the City of Canton that leads to the violation of the Plaintiff's rights, the City of Canton (the corporate entity) can be held liable for the violation. Somewhere I read that Harless: (a) is on leave; and (b) has a hearing scheduled for review both of this case and another traffic stop in which he was involved. If a pattern develops, that Harless did this stuff on a regular basis, especially if his superiors knew about it, then the Plaintiff will try to bootstrap that pattern to the city to show that there was a "policy, practice or custom" of violating the rights of citizens.
 
spats thanks for the analysis. My experience with liability as a corporate manager is in the environmental arena. I maintained a professional liability policy to defend me personnally. This was done because as my counsel explained the Company could not pay for my legal expenses our use their counsel to defend me. Conflict of intrest.

They could only reimburse me for expenses after the litigation was resolved.

We are probably getting outside the scope of the sites rules.

However in light of the Fulton county police shotting this should be of intrest.
 
1. There are actually 3 videos showing Harless' behavior. One of our local newstations did some digging and found this out and reported on it

2. IIRC there are 16 internal affairs investigation of Harless

3. Harless has had issues of turning off the dashcam, IIRC that is part of the IA investigations

The Canton PD is well aware of Harless and his behavior.
 
I hope Harless is all done
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Well done, like bacon.
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He MAY(?) never tote a badge again but you can be sure he'll go out on disability. Believe thats what he's currently working on while he's on paid sick leave. Also, if you think about the chain of events, it was in the City of Cantons best interest if Harless was under doctors care and didn't have to show up for Bartletts trial. Bartletts attorney would have probably loved to rip Harless apart on the stand. Convenient how these things happen, eh!

With 14 yrs service,I think is what Harless has towards his pension plus additional disability compensation, that will be a nice monthly income for the rest of his life.
 
Well i'm sure everyone would agree that being removed from his position in law enforcement is better for everyone, citizens and law enforcement a like for a mulititude of reasons, many of which was discussed in this thread.

And I guess I don't have a problem with him going out on partial pension, he put his 14 years in, and we will never know, he may have started out as fine expample of our finest. Where I have a mental block and problem is with this talk about disability. If he was so mentally incapacitated that he should have been on disabliltiy, then how is it he was able to continue to walk the streets with a gun on his belt and capable of greatly effecting innocent peoples lives. If it was me being railroaded, and they ruled him mentally incompacitated, I would be looking for the best team of lawers available, and I'd be asking, (with lots of documented proof) Gentlemen how is it your city allowed a mentally disabled cop to threaten to kill me over and over one night.

I am happy to start seeing some good news in all of this and it's nice to have at least a tiny bit of belief in the system again, but to me this was just aboslute power corrupting absolutely. In my opinon, charges should be brought against him and my form of disability would involve some time looking throught solid steel bars. Him and his partners behaviour is so far over the top and corrupt, I just don't see how anything but charges and expamples being made out of the two of them can't happen. I hate to see conspiracy and corruption in everything but I still say the whole law enforcement system is broken in that city, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. They new how he acted, he had been doing it with tons of examples for years, and they new he wasn't disabled. It is a mantality thats starts right at the top in that city and has unfortuneately filtered all the way down to the officers.

When the court finally gets its hands on things like this, it's nice to see so far, that at least they have some assemblance of law and order. Kudos to the judge so far in this case.


Spats, I have enjoyed your posts. A layman and average person like me being able to see the problems from a completely different view / angle has been benificial and educational.
 
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