Former police ‘Officer of the Year’ accused of anti-Semitic postings
Cleveland police officials launched an investigation into an officer’s anti-Semitic social media posts.
Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said that the department’s internal affairs investigators and ethics officer are investigating Officer Ismail Quran. He was hired in 2018 and was named the department’s “Officer of the Year” in 2019.
The investigation was launched after Canary Mission, an organization that works to expose anti-Semitic views, published dozens of screenshots from Quran’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association president Jeff Follmer said in a text message that Quran is an asset to Cleveland and has assisted in many police investigations over the years.
“These Tweets are from over a decade ago,” Follmer said. “It doesn’t represent the amazing police officer that he is.”
One of Quran’s Instagram accounts has been deleted, and the other is
private. Tweets highlighted by Canary Mission have since been deleted.
Canary Mission said in a statement that Quran’s posts glorified Adolf Hitler, defended the terrorist group Hamas, and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He used anti-Semitic slurs in several posts and joined a
Facebook group in 2017 that honored Osama bin Laden.
In one Tweet, he took aim at a Minnesota Timberwolves basketball player, Patrick Beverly, who tweeted about former pro basketball player Omri Casspi, who is Jewish.
“(Expletive) that Jew,” Quran said in the post. “Say something!” The tweet also featured a photo of Hitler with a caption that said: “LET ME SALUTE TO HITLER THE GREAT. He said ‘i would have killed all the jews of the world, but I kept some to show the world why i killed them.”
He also tweeted at Lara Kollab, the former supervised resident at the Cleveland Clinic, who left the hospital and surrendered her resident’s training certificate after Canary Mission found she posted anti-Semitic comments, including one that suggested she’d purposefully give the wrong medication to Jewish patients.
Quran in 2014 tweeted at Kollab: “who bothering ya!!! Let me at em! Lol if it’s a Jew give me their @ and I’ll do it,” accompanied by three laughing emojis.
Quran, during a 2021 ceremony, was given a Distinguished Service Medal and Officer of The Year award for the 2019 year.
Officials during the ceremony lauded Quran’s quick thinking while responding to a delivery truck driver who had been shot by a man with a shotgun. His partner surreptitiously followed the shooter, while he performed life-saving measures on the man who was shot.