Michael Amiott had resigned from Mentor police

Before joining the Euclid Police Department, Michael Amiott was an officer with the Mentor Police Department. He resigned in 2014 after making a false statement in a police report, according to city records.

Amiott is currently on paid administrative leave from Euclid police after a violent arrest was captured on a viral video Aug. 12.

Working for the Mentor Police Department was Amiott’s first full-time job as an officer. He previously worked as a part-time officer in Grand River. He is the nephew of the late former Mentor Police Chief Richard A. Amiott.

He was sworn in as a Mentor police officer on July 1, 2013, but would last less than a year with the department, resigning April 3, 2014.

Mentor Police Chief Kevin Knight determined that Amiott violated four sections of the department code of conduct: truthfulness, reporting, reports and booking, and arrest, search and seizure, according to a letter in Amiott’s personnel file.

According to an inter-office memo to Knight, Sgt. Richard Slovenkay was assigned to investigate a complaint regarding an arrest Amiott made for driving under suspension.

Amiott initiated a police stop of an orange Chevy Cavalier with dealer plates Feb. 22, 2014, on Mentor Avenue near Hollycroft Lane, according to the memo. After the driver provided a false name to Amiott, he was eventually arrested for traffic falsification, driving under suspension and fictitious plates.

According to the memo, Amiott called a sergeant to obtain bond for the suspect. The sergeant asked for the probable cause for the arrest and Amiott told him it was for no front plate. The sergeant told him that a car with a dealer plate did not need to display a front plate. Amiott called the sergeant back and added that he stopped the car for weaving.

That sergeant and another sergeant talked to Amiott about the incident

later that day. Amiott admitted that he did not have probable cause to make the stop after he learned a car with a dealer plate was not required to have a front plate. Amiott maintained the driver made a slight weave. Amiott admitted that he would not normally make a traffic stop for that.

The two sergeants who spoke with Amiott both felt he fabricated a violation of weaving once he realized his traffic stop was not valid.

“Ptl. Amiott’s claim that he ran this driver a few days prior to the traffic stop was also questionable, which added to the suspicion that he was untruthful about the weaving,” Slovenkay wrote in the memo.

When Slovenkay asked Amiott if his written report on the weaving violation was accurate, he said he recalled more weaving than what the in-car video showed.

Slovenkay wrote in his memo that he thought Amiott’s actions were due to a lack of knowledge rather than deceptive behavior.

Knight made the determination that Amiott would be fired.

“After reviewing the internal investigation, listening to the interviews and watching the complete video, I made the determination that Ptl. Amiott made a false statement in his police report,” Knight wrote. “At no time from the moment Ptl. Amiott pulled out to follow the vehicle in question until it was stopped did I observe anything closely remote to weaving.”

On April 3, Knight told Amiott that his employment with the city would be severed that day. Unprompted Amiott asked if he could resign first. Knight presented a pre-typed resignation letter, which Amiott signed.

Amiott, now with Euclid police, was placed on leave after a violent arrest where he punched 25-year-old Cleveland resident Richard Hubbard III multiple times after a traffic stop. Police released dash camera footage of the incident Aug. 14. Hubbard was charged with driving under suspension and resisting arrest. In a press release, Euclid police said the “entire incident will be reviewed, in detail, so that the public can have a full and open understanding of the series of events that eventually led to this violent encounter.”

Euclid Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail said in a statement the videos of the incident “raise some very serious concerns.”

“We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all use of force by police are both lawful and justified,” she said in her statement. “I can assure you the incident will be reviewed thoroughly and appropriate action will be taken. We certainly do not want this incident to erase all of the good work that has happened and continues to happen every day in Euclid or to define who we are as a community.”