CLEVELAND – The Cleveland ACLU announced this weekend it will investigate the use of pepper spray by an RTA officer on a crowd.
RTA’s pepper spray policy came under scrutiny after Sgt. Robert Schwab pepper-sprayed a crowd of protesters outside Cleveland State University on July 26.
“The use of pepper spray by law enforcement as a means of crowd control is questionable,” ACLU of Ohio Executive Director Christine Link said in a press release. “No use of force should be applied to groups of people. We will look into this matter further and will review both the RTA’s use of force policy and the actions of the officer. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered about what happened.”
NEW VIDEO: RTA Officer pepper sprays crowd, video shows crowd before the conflict
A NewsChannel 5 Investigation found RTA’s pepper spray policy gives officers little guidance when compared to other Northeast Ohio police departments.
For example, Westlake Police have a pepper spray policy six-pages long outlining when an officer can use pepper spray on a subject.
In comparison, RTA’s policy is only one-third of a page long and consists of two guidelines for when to use pepper spray.
READ MORE: NewsNet5.com
Article Courtesy of WEWS NewsChannel 5 Cleveland
Picture Courtesy of Twitter and WEWS NewsChannel 5 Cleveland
