- [Mike] A grand jury declined to indict a Cleveland metropolitan housing authority officer and the death of a 19 year old Clevelander.

The teen's family now wants a federal investigation.

A Boston study, take some of the wind out of the vax-a-million lottery hype and emergency doctors remind people to put safety first, as they make up for lost time this summer.

Ideas is next.

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(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

A Cuyahoga metropolitan housing authority officer will not be charged in the shooting death of a 19 year old in Cleveland.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland police officer who shot Tamir Rice to death in 2014 will not be reinstated to the Cleveland Division of Police.

A new law increases penalties for hazing and broadens the definition of it on college campuses in Ohio.

People are making up for the last summer of 2020 by savoring every moment of summer 2021, but emergency room doctors say some of that exuberance mixed with too much alcohol in many cases is leading to accidents and injuries.

Joining me to talk about these stories and more Ideas stream public media, health reporter, Anna Huntsman, WKSU reporter Kabir Bhatia, and from Columbus Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Karen, so we have these three shooting cases.

The one where there was an investigation, it was conducted by the Cleveland police on CMHA, where we say, we are told that there will be no indictment.

The other two, which were investigated by the bureau of criminal investigation.

Now being handed over to prosecutor, let's start with the Cleveland shooting case Yost office was asked to step in to present the case to a grand jury.

- It was interesting to see the attorney general get involved.

But I think the whole idea was to bring in an outside, look at this, but this is, this is what their final decision was.

- Yost office said, it just presented the case, but when ask questions about it, like what about the witnesses that may not have been interviewed those types of things?

Essentially they just said, well, it wasn't our investigation.

It was Cleveland police.

The family seemed to be expecting a little bit more from the AG's office.

- Yeah.

I mean, Yost was talking about the importance of having an independent investigator to come in and handle these types of cases.

But yeah, you're correct that he did say, this was not our case.

The family, however of Arthur Keith is very upset.

Scott Hawkins is his father.

He said his children and his family are upset with the decision.

They want justice.

They're now considering a federal lawsuit.

And they're also planning on protesting tomorrow, outside the CMAJ headquarters on Woodland Avenue.

So obviously the family was wanting a little bit more than this and we'll see what happens then with what they do and what they feel that their next step might be.

- And Kabir, there's some questions about transparency in this case.

I know Idea stream has been involved in a lawsuit for many months, trying to get any, what we consider to be and have argued are public records, which are videos that would have been taken at the scene.

The video that one video was released after this decision by the grand jury.

And it was a video that doesn't show the actual shooting itself.

The question here is why not?

There were a number of cameras there.

Some of them apparently weren't working.

- They either weren't working or the server that captured all of the video, I guess that was sitting unsecured for several days at CMAJ headquarters, before the police came, who did the investigation and secured it.

So there's no record of whether that video ever did exist, whether the cameras were working.

If the video existed at one point was removed in those six days, the angles that as you said, have been released, or that are available show, very limited portions of what happened.

They show some witnesses watching what's happening, but the actual crime itself, as of now, the video doesn't seem to exist.

And it would seem that if the family does go forward and push for either an independent investigation, more investigation, something, that's going to be a question of why wasn't that secure?

Where did that video end up to?

If it did exist.

There's also the question about body cam video, I guess, there isn't any, I CMHA police, I believe maybe don't even have body cameras.

So all of that's going to be a problem when it comes to figuring out exactly what happened because the video, if it existed may not exist anymore and may never have existed.

- Hmm.

I mentioned a couple of Franklin County cases as well.

Those are not at that point yet where a decision has been made by a grand jury.

They've been handed over to the prosecutor and Franklin County.

Who did the investigation on those Karen?

- That was BCI the Bureau of Criminal Investigation that the state operates.

And those are two interesting cases as well.

I mean, you've got Andrew Teague who according to law enforcement was shot during exchange of gunfire after a chase involved in the Franklin County Sheriff's office and Columbus police on March 5th and then Ma'Khaia Bryant.

That's the 16 year old girl who was in foster care, who was shot during a scuffle outside her house, the house where she was living on April 21st.

What was interesting about that one especially was the foster care angle.

And of course, the fact that that happened the day that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Shovan was sentenced for the murder of George Floyd.

So it was just a terrible situation to happen.

A police shooting on that particular day.

BCI investigate both those cases.

The information is now been turned over to the Franklin County grand jury and a Franklin County prosecutor rather.

And he can convene a grand jury.

What's also of note in this is that the Franklin County prosecutor is a Democrat, for the first time in 60 years is a Democrat and a previous Franklin County prosecutors have not been real aggressive in their pursuit of law enforcement officers in these kinds of cases.

So this will be something to watch.

- Now, a story related to another police involved shooting death, that of Tamir Rice in 2014, the Ohio Supreme court this week declined to hear the Cleveland police unions appeal and its efforts to get former officer Timothy Loehmann back on the force, Loehmann shot and killed the 12 year old.

He was not charged though he was fired by the city for lying on his application.

Kabir the union then went and filed suit and said, well, that's not appropriate.

And the lower court had thrown that out.

It went to the Supreme Court and what essentially did it do?

- They said the same thing each time.

It seems to be setback or thrown out because of some technicality that attorneys weren't notified about something in a timely manner or paperwork wasn't filed in a timely manner, that sort of thing.

So it seems as though each time Timothy Loehmann has come up against when he uses the, at least the attorneys from the Cleveland police union, that something went awry, some sort of small technological procedural piece.

And that prevents his case from being heard about something that was kind of serious lying on the application when he first applied for the force.

So it seems like this is pretty much it for him as far as trying to get re-instated.

Now, what would it be five, six years down the road for something that was initially another type of technicality where he lied on the application.

- Right?

And I understand that the union didn't in a timely manner, appeal this and needed to do it in a certain amount of time.

And the court saying, well, you didn't do it in that time.

And so we're not even going to get into the details of this.

So as you said, it seems as though that one is done, Timothy Loehmann will not be a police officer in Cleveland.

Karen, it was a split decision though, with the chief justice who was a Republican joining with the Democrats on the court.

And you mentioned earlier how there was concern about the idea when there's been a Republican prosecutor in Franklin County, we haven't seen cases brought, but now that there's a Democrat, there might, it doesn't seem like this ought to be something that a D or an R is attached to, but it appears that it is.

- Yeah, I think the court is changing a little bit.

And I think this is the second major case that I can think of where Chief Justice Marina Connor, who's Republican sided with the three Democrats on the court.

And that could potentially be significant.

I mean, like you said, this is not a case that you would necessarily think would fall along party lines, but I think it's really interesting to note this.

And I think as we watch these cases go through, especially with the democratic prosecutor here in Franklin County, we have all these potential corruption cases that are happening, that could end up in the federal or in the Franklin County court system, or because of a piece of legislation could end up in lawmakers, home districts.

Cause that's a move to try to move corruption cases out of Franklin County and move them back home, which is interesting when you consider taking people who might've been accused of a crime in Columbus and trying them in their home district, where they might know more people, all this situation around the courts is really interesting to watch.

(soft upbeat music) - People are making the most out of the summer of 2021 after losing the summer of 2020 to COVID-19.

But there is a downside, a spike in injuries and deaths, prompting officials to remind everyone to keep safety in mind, as they have fun.

Anna, let's start with this tragedy that happened actually in Michigan, over the holiday weekend, a goalkeeper for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Matiss Kivlenieks who died of injuries sustained in a fireworks accident at a Michigan home of his coach.

This is a literally a mortar that is blown into his chest.

And I was thinking about this in my neighborhood.

There were some people that were blowing off mortars that were a little bit more than the usual firecracker.

The thing went up straight up over to my house, the kind of explosion that makes you hit the ground.

And you think to yourself, okay, it's the one night of the year.

And if people are doing it safely, I guess, what am I going to do about it?

But when you imagine the kind of damage that can be caused, when one little thing goes wrong, like it tips over, it's just really unthinkable.

- And that's the thing that health experts talked to me about before the 4th of July weekend.

Because I was kind of trying to get ahead of the curve.

You know, what are you expecting this weekend?

And the fact of the matter is fireworks are unpredictable and you can try as hard as you might to be safe about it.

But unfortunately every year they see bad things happen.

And sometimes it's not just that somebody was holding a Roman candle and it explodes, you know, it's, somebody was running to get out of the way and unfortunately, bad things can happen.

And I think that's what we saw with this, unfortunately, very tragic incident.

- In Cleveland, little bit of silver lining, there were a hospital visits, but apparently a little bit less than the year before, don't know what to account for that.

But really any is just completely unnecessary.

- Yeah.

Injuries were down from last year for fireworks related injuries at least, but they are seeing an increase in just injuries and accidents overall.

And they're thinking that it might be because bars are open again, people are getting back out there and when you haven't been out for a while, you might just want to have some extra fun.

And so unfortunately they're seeing a lot of car accidents actually, and alcohol related injuries.

So people might go on a little bit, going a little bit too far and ending up in the emergency room unfortunately.

- Karen, I know you're a big Blue Jackets fan.

Let's talk about that.

That goaltender, what a tragedy.

And I would think in Columbus, this is really hitting hard.

- Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I was out of town when I saw this story, but by the time I got back, it was just everywhere.

There was a very emotional press conference that the Blue Jackets held talk about Matiss Kivlenieks.

And the story is just so horrible, not just because of what happened, but because so many of the team members were there, they were there at the coach's home in Michigan celebrating or the assistant coaches home, I believe celebrating the wedding of his daughter.

I mean, Elvis Merzlikins, who is the other goal, the main goalie for the Blue Jackets, he and his wife, they were Matisse's best friends.

They were there.

I mean, it's just the impact on the team is just terrible.

And so it's these fireworks incidents, when you hear about them are just so tragic, but then you start realizing the ripple effect that they cause it's just awful.

And so this was a very, very emotional time for a lot of people who are Blue Jackets fans.

- This happened in Michigan, as I said, but in Ohio, there is a push to make fireworks legal, to set off in the state.

Right now they're illegal with a wink, wink and a nod because I told you they were going off all over me in my neighborhood.

I know some folks that were in some neighborhoods where they had to clean up the shrapnel afterward and they weren't firing off any fireworks.

But where does that stand is Ohio looking to make it easier to use these fireworks around these holiday times?

- Well, interestingly enough, there is a bill that's passed both the house and senate that would allow people to set off fireworks in Ohio on about two weeks worth of holidays throughout the year.

They can't be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Huh.

And let's just, current law allows people to buy fireworks in Ohio, but they have to take them to another state to set them off.

And you don't have to sign that form anymore.

It says you will.

But that's the current law.

The governor has had the law, the bill rather that passed the house and Senate since the end of June.

And I would expect to see some action on that today.

It did pass along party lines with Republicans voting for it, Democrats voting against it.

But DeWine has been really cautious about a lot of these things, especially because of the effect on children.

So I would be very interested to see what DeWine does with this bill, whether he signs it, whether he vetoes it or whether he allows it to become law without his signature, I would expect action on this today and I'll be watching.

- Okay.

- It'll also be interesting to see what happens if they were to be legalized, because I guess what happens sometimes is if people do get injured from fireworks, they actually delay seeking care because they don't want to get in trouble.

They're afraid that they'll, you know, somehow because they're illegal, they'll get in trouble.

If they go and seek medical care, of course, health experts say, we will take care of anybody, please come.

But unfortunately, people aren't seeking care immediately when they get their burn.

It's actually a couple of days later because the pain just gets too unbearable.

And so it it'll be interesting to see what happens in that regard.

- Absolutely.

Let's talk about some other, I know this is kind of a downer portion of the show, but maybe a little wake-up call.

We need to hear it.

So fireworks is one thing.

Also, drownings are up this year across the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes surf rescue project says as of July 2nd, there've been 32 drownings in the Great Lakes compared to 25 this time, last year, over the holiday weekend, a 13 year old boy drown swimming off Euclid beach.

It was not the guarded swimming area and the Great Lakes surf rescue project wants people to practice water safety measures, including wearing life jackets while in the water.

Anna, you've done some reporting on this talk to emergency room doctors this week, we talked about the car accidents, those types of things, but the drownings that's troubling as well.

- Right?

And I think the report showed that at the time six of those drownings were in Lake Erie.

That's now seven, including the most recent incident that you just talked about.

Again, of course, some of those are children and it's important to teach them water safety.

But again, they experts emphasize, be careful be responsible when you drink, because that can also again go onto all these different types of injuries.

But it's just, again, a wake up call.

And I almost wonder if we are seeing more drownings this year because people are going out more.

I mean, last year you might not want to, you might not have wanted to go to a crowded beach.

Maybe this year you do.

So it's just, again, like you were saying a wake-up call.

- Kabir, I know you're a world-class swimmer, but even a world-class swimmer like yourself, would have to be very careful when you talk about swimming in the lake, the currents and those types of things, you can be swimming one moment and suck down the next.

- That's true, especially in the Great Lakes with the way the currents are.

I mean, we've seen that as we saw over the weekend, again, you're sort of fight or flight survival instinct kicks in and you want to try and get out of the water.

And the experts are saying that should not be the first instinct we realize it is, but you should concentrate sort of staying vertical and trying to get out.

That's how you're going to tire yourself out.

Get sucked down instead, try and float, breathe, just get some air until somebody can come assist you or you can float out.

And so the experts have been saying that a lot of these cases, it's somebody who is trying to frantically get out of the water.

They tire themselves out.

And the current took them down because the Great Lakes have such a different currents that maybe then people are used to.

Another factor and we just talked about this a second ago, with the fireworks alcohol.

A lot of times people have been drinking they decide I'm going to take a dip.

I mean, not the, of course the 13 year old boy obviously, excuse me, but a lot of older adults swimmers, that seems to be one of the factors.

And I think that, again, it's a case of people in 2021, trying to make up for the lost summer of 2020, even though we had Dora's alcohol sales were much greater.

You could do take out alcohol, but this year that seems to be one of the things they're noticing is a factor in some of these cases.

- And let's talk about one last troubling aspect.

And that was Karen, the holiday crashes, holiday weekend crashes, claiming 16 lives statewide over the weekend, alcohol and drugs again, played a role in some of those.

- Yeah.

I mean, it was a lot more crashes this year than last year, which was interesting because last year we weren't supposed to be, we weren't supposed to be moving around or whatever, but last year, 25 people died this year, 16 died.

And again, like you said, alcohol and drugs, but last year, five, I'm sorry, paramount drugs and alcohol was a factor in nearly three quarters of those accidents that killed 25 people last year.

This year, they're saying at least five of the accidents that killed 16 people, alcohol and drugs were a factor.

But the one thing that's not said here is speed.

And how speed is quite often a factor in accidents and potentially the lack of use of a seatbelt.

So I think that there's another element of this, that it's not just drugs and alcohol, but also speed that can really kill people in roadways, especially when there's construction, when there's a lot of people around that can be very, very dangerous.

- [Mike] Anna.

- Yeah and Karen, you were just talking about speed and looking into that more.

And I remember last year we were seeing really people were clocking 80, 90 on the highway because there was not a lot of traffic.

- [Mike] Yeah no one was there so wide open spaces.

- So people were, and so they were seeing even deadlier crashes last year.

So I almost wonder if that had something to do with it.

Maybe there was more traffic on the roads this time around.

(soft upbeat music) - A new law aims to crack down on hazing on college campuses in Ohio, the governor this week signed Collin's law, which revises the definition of hazing to include coercing another, to consume drugs or alcohol as part of an initiation.

It also makes specific violations of felony.

The law is named for Collin Wyatt an Ohio University, freshman who died in 2018.

There was also the death of a Bowling Green student Stone Foltz, recently as well.

And that got this bill really moving it seems Karen.

- Yeah.

I mean the Collin's law had been kind of sitting around, like you said, for a while, because that was in 2018.

Then now with the death of Stone Foltz at Bowling Green that really pushed forward, the idea of something needs to be done.

Some changes need to happen with regard to hazing.

And this law would revise the definition of hazing to include coercing another, to consume alcohol or drugs as part of an initiation into a student organization, like a fraternity or sorority.

And then if there's physical harm that results, then offenders could face up to a third degree felony and you know, that's part of it.

But there's also the part about really making sure that colleges and universities see this and start doing things that help them comply with this law to really change the culture that it's not just the Criminal Act, because if you're charging people after the fact, then you're not doing what the law is trying to do, which is prevent deaths of students in the first place.

And so trying to incorporate that law into college and university life is and to try to, again, change the culture around hazing, especially the use of drugs and alcohol is part of it.

- In Stone Foltz's case, it was alcohol-related.

Anna you're a little closer to the college experience than I am.

I'm a little farther away from that now.

- Really?

- But I know people probably couldn't tell if they were watching our live stream, but what about the idea of tackling this binge drinking and substance abuse?

I mean, it was prevalent when I was on a college campus 30 something years ago, I would think it's still prevalent today.

- It is.

And I think that's the key where DeWine was talking about changing the culture and some things have just been tolerated or even in some cases accepted for years.

I mean, I've heard about not just at my college, but at other colleges, some really interesting practices that you have to do to get into a sorority or fraternity with fraternities.

I don't have any evidence of this, but I think it's more so the drinking and drugs related things, and it's just kind of, yep.

That's just what we do.

That's how we've always done it.

And I think there is a component of this law that is about training, I think requiring students and teachers to do some sort of anti-hazing training.

Maybe there's some alcohol and substance abuse education as part of that.

Because again, I mean, binge drinking is not healthy for you.

I mean, it's a very serious issue, but that's kind of what happens unfortunately.

And I think it's interesting that we're finally seeing a law about it.

- And Kabir, what about the colleges?

You obviously cover Kent State a lot as WKSU is there, is this one of those things it's being foisted upon colleges or is this something colleges have been asking for and are happy to incorporate?

- Well, if you ask the students probably they'll feel it's being foisted, but the administration was all in on this, at least at Kent State.

I think back in March, they put out the statement saying that they very much support it.

And they were even saying, you know, Karen mentioned a good point that if you're just charging people after the fact, that's not really stemming the problem the way it needs to be.

And Ken State University said, yeah, this'll help us.

This will strengthen our ability to do something about this going forward on both sides of it.

And they also pointed out that it's not just going to affect for them at least fraternities and sororities.

I mean, we've heard about it, the sort of thing with some of the athletic teams, maybe not in Kent State, but over the last few years, we've heard about that at the college level where there's some sort of hazing or that sort of thing, locker room issues, and you're right.

This has been kind of a wink, wink.

Yeah.

It happens.

We all know what happens.

We've all seen animal house the same.

Thank you, sir.

May I have another, but now it seems like finally they have something that will be a deterrent that says, if you do end up doing this, there's going to be some serious consequences for you.

So you need to stop whether it's a sorority, fraternity, athletic team or any other organization on campus.

- Ohio's much hyped vax-a-million program didn't really add up to more people getting vaccinated.

According to researchers outside the state, the Boston University School of Medicine found that the lottery wasn't the reason, for a small increase in vaccination numbers, because similar increases were seen in other states with no such incentives, Ohio officials, strongly disagree.

Anna, what does the state say about that?

- Well, the state says it's flawed.

I talked to Dan Tierney, who's a spokesman for governor Mike DeWine.

He was not very happy about the study.

He said a lot of heads turned when it first came out.

So essentially what happened is there some researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine, they wanted to see if lotteries could actually really increase this vaccination rate in Ohio was first.

So they focused on Ohio and yes, while they acknowledged there was a small bump, there was an increase the first week after you saw it in other states as well.

And so their reasoning is it, maybe wasn't the lottery.

It was maybe just this national trend and what was also happening at the same time as a lottery is the FDA expanded who could get the vaccine.

So they expanded eligibility to ages 12 to 15.

And so these researchers say, well, maybe that encouraged some adults to get the vaccine as well.

Maybe they were more confident in it.

Or another theory is, you know, you could take all your kids to get it at once.

Your older kids, younger kids, and then maybe they decided to get it too.

Of course, Dan Tyranny says, well, when you look at the adult vaccination rate in Ohio, after vax-a-million, it went up 44% for 16 and over.

And he was saying, we've heard anecdotally from health departments and from people, I mean, some of the vax-a-million winners even said, yeah, as soon as I heard about it, I signed up and I wanted to move it up.

So it's kind of honestly, they're all kind of saying the same thing.

It went up a little bit.

It just, you know, the DeWine's office says, this is definitely because of vax-a-million.

Boston University, outside researchers say, maybe you can't tie it quite to that.

- They didn't use the Boston University study.

Didn't use Ohio department of health numbers though either.

Right.

- They looked at the CDC data because that's really the only data source where you can compare other states as well.

So they were not looking at percentages.

The weekly percent change rate like DeWine's office uses.

They took the numbers from the four weeks before vax-a-million and then the four weeks after it was announced.

And they did some, you know, analysis, some statistical analysis there, and that's kind of where they found their data.

- And that's going to wrap up our show Monday on the Sound of Ideas.

We'll bring you a city club discussion moderated by Rick Jackson on how Cuyahoga County should spend American Rescue Plan funds.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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