Hand-picked sergeant has troubling past
Docs show use of force, traffic stop complaints
The sergeant hand-picked to oversee a new Columbus police gang enforcement unit has been investigated for excessive force and pulling drivers over — many of them Black — for questionable reasons, an investigation by The Dispatch has found.
Sgt. Shawn Gruber, 32, joined the Columbus Division of Police in June 2011 and was promoted to sergeant in 2019. Before being handpicked by First Assistant Chief Lashanna Potts to head the new gang enforcement unit, Gruber worked patrol in Zone 2 on the city’s East Side.
Because of his leadership on the police division’s 2022 Summer Safety Initiative
on the East Side, Gruber was recognized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio. According to an online post by the office, Gruber and his team “recovered 17 firearms, including an automatic weapon, from numerous known gang members,” helping in homicide investigations. An additional 35 felony arrests were made and at least a half kilogram of crack cocaine was found during the six-week initiative.
Former Deputy Chief Ken Kuebler, one of four deputy chiefs who took a $500,000 buyout in January, told The Dispatch that Potts hand-picked Gruber for the unit after seeing a presentation about the safety initiative by Gruber in September to a group of police leaders.
“Potts knew nothing about him until she saw him give a presentation about a case they built over the summer,” Kuebler said. “Potts wanted a much more aggressive enforcement arm, moving away from intelligence and slow case building.”
The Division of Police declined interview requests. Columbus police Public Relations Adviser Melanie Amato provided written responses to Dispatch questions for this story.
Documents obtained by The Dispatch indicate Gruber has had past problems with use of force and at least 18 questionable traffic stops. The Dispatch could not determine if Gruber had faced any disciplinary actions as a result of complaints against him.
Questions over traffic stops leads to investigation
A Black man who was pulled over twice within a week by then-officer Gruber and his partner, Derek Blaine, filed a complaint with police in May 2015. Sgt. Anthony Wilson, an investigator with the division’s Internal Affairs
Bureau, said his investigation of that complaint led him to conduct a random review of a day’s worth of traffic stops by the two officers.
On the random day chosen, Gruber was the passenger in the two-man patrol car as they made 16 traffic stops.
In the investigative summary, Wilson raised concerns in a written report over potential racial profiling by the two officers, writing that Gruber and Blaine’s “inability to articulate the reason for searching many of the vehicles ... may not constitute a pattern of Bias-based Profiling, but may be attributed to a pattern of engaging in unlawful stops and illegal searches.”
Questionable reasons led to many stops, report says
Wilson noted in his 2015 report that Gruber and Blaine could not give solid reasons for why they pulled over most of the vehicles in the 16 traffic stops. In many cases, Gruber said he was smelling marijuana coming from moving vehicles.
Wilson cited the “amazing olfactory abilities” of Gruber and his partner in his report: “To smell the odor of burnt marijuana from a passing motor vehicle while both vehicles are potentially traveling at 35 mph is a feat within itself. To identify the specific vehicle that the odor of marijuana is emanating from when multiple vehicles are traveling on the roadway is nearly impossible.”
The drivers in 75% of the stops were Black men, Wilson reported. A Black male passenger was involved in another stop and the remaining three stops involved drivers and passengers the investigator could not determine the race of during the investigation.
On multiple occasions, the officers did not check to see if the driver or passenger had any active warrants, did not ask for the driver’s license or registration, pulled vehicles over while they were supposed to be responding to other calls and failed to tell dispatchers where they were or what vehicle they had pulled over, the investigation report said.
Wilson also noted in his report that a microphone that was supposed to be turned on by Blaine had not been turned on in any of the 16 stops.
In one case, the officers detained a man who had an active warrant for driving under suspension. They did not run a warrant check to verify any warrant. They did not turn on the camera focused on the back seat of their cruiser while the suspect was sitting there in violation of Division of Police policy. The investigation did not make clear why the man was later released without any charges.
In a different stop, a small amount of marijuana was seized, but Wilson noted that the marijuana was never submitted as evidence to the department’s property room.
No citations or tickets were given to any of the people who were pulled over in the 16 traffic stops.
Amato told The Dispatch that the incidents in question were not in Gruber’s personnel file when reviewed by Potts because they would have been removed under the union contract and the division’s records retention policy.
Even if Potts had known about the allegations before selecting Gruber to oversee the gang unit, Amato said, Potts could not have considered them in assessing his suitability for the unit under the union contract.
“Since First Assistant Chief Potts started at the Division, Sgt. Gruber has exemplified excellent policing and has been recognized by the U.S. Attorney’s office,” Amato wrote.
The Black man who was pulled over twice in one week by Gruber and Blaine filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against them and the city in 2017. That lawsuit was later settled for $12,500, according to City Attorney Zach Klein’s office.
Amato wrote that settling lawsuits is “not an admission of guilt or wrongdoing,” but rather a legal matter and financial decision “based on our obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Gruber accused of excessive force
In March 2014, Gruber was accused in a federal civil rights lawsuit of using excessive force while working as a special duty security officer at the nowclosed BBR bar in the Arena District.
According to the lawsuit, former Penn State University basketball player and Columbus native Jamelle Cornley had gone to BBR and was not able to get into the bar because the bar was getting ready to close. Cornley said he was having a conversation with a bouncer when Gruber approached him and told him to leave. Cornley responded that he was talking to the bouncer.
The lawsuit said Gruber immediately grabbed Cornley’s arm and began hitting him in the face and head. The lawsuit said Gruber also “repeatedly” sprayed mace in Cornley’s face and was hitting or kneeing Cornley, causing him to fall.
Cornley was charged with assault on a peace officer, a fourth-degree felony, despite video evidence from the bar provided to The Dispatch and cited in the lawsuit that showed he never struck Gruber or another officer working special duty with Gruber at the bar.
A jury found Cornley not guilty of the felony charge at trial. A lesser charge of disorderly conduct was dismissed by a judge.
“... Maybe I pissed him off that day,” Cornley, who plays professional basketball overseas, said in a 2016 interview. “Maybe it was something where he wasn’t particularly ready ... But, it still doesn’t give you the right to put your hands on me.”
Cornley later dismissed his lawsuit, according to Klein’s office and no settlement was paid.
“Since these allegations were not present in Sgt. Gruber’s file they were not evaluated” in considering Gruber for appointment to head the special gang enforcement unit being created, Amato wrote. “We are prohibited from expanding on them further.”
Questions about special unit’s creation
Kuebler told The Dispatch that he and the other three deputy chiefs who took the buyouts expressed concerns to Potts and Chief Elaine Bryant about the unit.
“It did not appear to align with the culture change that the politicians were calling for,” Kuebler said.
In an intra-divisional memo to Police Chief Elaine Bryant dated Jan. 9, Potts proposed the unit, which had been operating under a 60-day temporary assignment, become permanent. She named Gruber and the six other officers as the members she wanted for the unit, which would be assigned to work from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.
Potts also proposed a second gang enforcement unit that would have one sergeant and 10 officers and would work from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. with some variable hours Thursdays to Mondays, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
Amato told The Dispatch that the unit is temporary and maintained that the Potts’ memo does not mean those officers would be permanently assigned to the gang enforcement unit.
“A core group started this pilot due to the fact that they were already working together, but we are always re-evaluating who is in this unit,” Amato wrote. “If and when this unit becomes permanent, all officers will have a minimum of five years.”
Amato told The Dispatch that the gang enforcement unit is a “pilot program” and the officers are “hand-selected.” The city’s contract with Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9 contains language by pay week designating the maximum period officers can be on temporary assignment — about 6 months — and anything permanent would require opening the positions to other union members to apply.
“If this unit does become permanent, we will work with the FOP and the city to fill positions,” Amato wrote. “All selected officers will have a minimum of five years in the Division.”
Some of new unit’s officers have limited experience
Two of the officers named by Potts in the memo do not have five years experience. Officer Grady Kissee has three years of experience with the division and was investigated in March 2022 for shooting an 18-year-old Black man who had a firearm. Body camera footage showed Kissee fired at the man, who was not seriously injured, while the man was putting the firearm down. The shooting is under investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
A second officer Potts identified in the memo, Matthew Andrachik, also has fewer than five years of experience.
Officer Sean Connair, also identified by Potts for assignment to the unit, was involved in the July 2012 fatal shooting of George Hall, who was shot after pointing a firearm at Connair and another officer outside a West Side bar. Connair was cleared of any wrongdoing and a grand jury declined to press charges in the case.
Connair was also involved in the 2017 arrest of Timothy Davis, whom the city last month agreed to pay $225,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit in federal court in Columbus.
“The participating officers are highly committed and specially trained to target group and gang violence,” Amato wrote to the Dispatch. “We are confident in the officers chosen to do this job.” bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner