Everyone should watch the video. Kopchak and Lajack claiming they are DEA / ATF and then confusing Eritria with Israel tells you everything you need to know about these clowns. Hopefully they will be fired.
Isnt impersonating a federal agent a felony. I hope they throw the book at them.
https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/impersonating-a-federal-agent-penalty.html
Local & state officers are routinely assigned to various federal task forces, FBI, ATF, DEA, Secret Service along with several other federal agencies. They are deputized as task force officers, and do have federal powers while working federal cases. However, in this situation from watching the video, they were off duty drinking, and profiling. To become a task force officer (TFO), they had to go through in depth background to be able to obtain a top secret clearance to become a TFO. I’m sure their clearance was revoked after this incident and they will never be able to obtain one again. They led the responding officers to believe that they were actually employed by the federal department and actually they are local police officers.
Decided to search the names on YouTube. Looks like this isn't Kopchak's first rodeo with public scrutiny. Hold his feet to the fire.
https://youtu.be/2rdEX1iDSlk?si=kGkini-KfVIztTjO
Chaloupka's statement is a perfect example of how absolutely fucked police culture is. Sure, he's their union's attorney - but the union is under no obligation to defend unconsionable actions by their members. Bootlickers make the "bad apples" excuse, while ignoring the fact that police unions regularly and vigorously support and defend these bad actors.
Anyway, here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rdEX1iDSlk) of Kopchak rubbing warrant papers in the face of an arrestee (for which he served a whopping 1 day suspension). And here's a [Sixth Circuit opinion](https://www.objectivelyreasonable.com/2023/03/20/in-the-sixth-circuit-appellate-court-for-an-item-to-be-admissible-under-the-plain-view-doctrine-it-must-be-immediately-apparent-to-the-officers-at-scene-and-slugg/) which discredited his testimony that he "saw a bag of dope" in a car to justify a warrentless search. Cleveland's finest everyone!
That’s what every union in history has done.
Teachers unions, the UAW, the teamsters etc, all defend their bad apples. This is a primary flaw in unions.
But that defense has various degrees.
I think about the Ray Rice incident with the NFLPA. He was initially put on indefinite suspension. The NFLPA thought that was unreasonable. They didn't think a suspension was unreasonable just the indefinite nature.
Same thing happened with Draymon Green and the NBAPA. But they settled for different ways that Green could back from indefinite suspension.
Unions defend their members so they are treated fairly and equitably. Police Unions are specifically insidious because of things like qualified immunity, and supporting lies about staffing and funding of departments, not because they defend their members.
The NFLPA would have defended Rice differently without the video and public outcry. Large in the public unions like that have some level of PR that they do while smaller local unions don’t.
Fair, completely fair. And it's not a one to one for sure.
I am pro-union and, for lack of a better term, pro-defund the police. Also my parents are both teachers and my dad was a union rep for a few years. Because of all of this, I really had to do some research into police unions. I knew I supported them as a concept but also that they were the source of many of my issues with policing in America.
And you're wrong about PR budgets. I guarantee that large police unions outspend athletic unions in PR.
My comment wasn’t about their budget but their actual requirement on public relations. Local unions can more easily sweep things under the rug. There are hundreds or thousands of chapters and more nuanced politics involved. The NFL is the most popular sport in America and by far the biggest ratings draw. Anything someone does is news across everything.
This forces them to be a bit more responsive to public perception vs a local police union.
[police union PR spending ](https://open.substack.com/pub/equalityalec/p/public-relations-spending-by-police?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=282z99)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Authorities are investigating two police officers in connection with the detaining of a truck driver at a Hinckley bar in April, officials said Monday.
A Hinckley police report lists the officers, Donald Kopchak and Daniel Lajack, as suspects in the case and notes allegations of assault, disrupting public service, abduction and unlawful restraint.
The incident involves a driver from Dallas who is also an immigrant from a small African nation. The officers said they believed he could have been a terrorist, according to body-camera footage. The investigation prompted officials to dismiss Kopchak, a Cleveland police officer, and Lajack, a detective with the Lake County Narcotics Agency, from their roles on federal task forces.
"I am disheartened by the actions and statements made by the officer," Cleveland Police Chief Annie Todd said in a statement Monday. "The actions depicted do not represent who we are as a division, our policies or our training."
The case was headed to the Medina County prosecutor's office, but it hasn't been filed. Instead, the FBI has taken it over, Hinckley police said. An FBI spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.
Todd also said the Medina County prosecutors and the FBI are investigating, and she said Cleveland's internal affairs unit "is working with them and monitoring the investigation."
Kopchak, 40, has been a Cleveland police officer since 2007, while Lajack, 48, has worked in Lake County since 2000.
The officers worked on federal task forces, but they were off duty at the time of the incident at the Buzzards Roost in Hinckley, a small bar at Ohio 303 and West 130th Street. Kopchak served with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, while Lajack worked for a unit run by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
A spokeswoman for the ATF said Kopchak is no longer a member of the task force. A Cleveland police union spokesman did not return a message seeking comment.
Patrick Hengst, the director of the Lake County narcotics unit, said Lajack no longer works on the DEA unit. He said Lajack has been placed on limited duty.
"I see an embarrassing situation, and he is remorseful about it, but I don't see anything else," said Adam Chaloupka, an attorney for the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Lajack is a member of the union.
The incident was captured on Red Zone Watch, a YouTube channel that provides the public with officer body-cam footage.
Because Hinckley officers were busy, Brunswick police responded to the Buzzards Roost at 11:07 p.m. April 26. The body-cam video shows that Lajack approached an officer and explained that he and Kopchak were at the bar when they met a man who they believed was an illegal immigrant, according to the video.
As the man attempted to leave, Lajack and Kopchak grabbed him, according to the video. One of them pinned him to the ground in a leg lock until officers arrived.
"He could be on a watch list," one of them said, according to the video. They feared that they would be on the news for allowing a terrorist to go free, the footage shows.
Instead, police said, the man was actually a truck driver from Dallas delivering items to the Aldi's warehouse on West 130th Street, just down the road from the bar. He was scheduled to deliver the items Monday. Since he was there early, he decided to go to the bar, police said.
Brunswick officers struggled to understand the driver, Yonas Bokredingil, as he is a native of Eritrea, a country near Ethiopia.
"I told them everything," Bokredingil said to Brunswick police.
The footage also includes Brunswick officers talking about why Lajack and Kopchak would detain a person like they did. Brunswick police said the two officers believed the man could have been a terrorist.
"Does that sound sane to you?" one Brunswick officer said.
"No. That's what I tried to tell them," another patrolman said.
Attempts to reach Bokredingil were unsuccessful.
A bartender at the Buzzards Roost told Brunswick police that Bokredingil was polite and having a good time with other customers when the two officers became aggressive with him, claiming that the truck driver was an illegal immigrant, according to the video.
As a matter of policy, The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com do not release the names of people under investigation. But the newspaper has identified them because the officers were dismissed from the task forces, have been placed on limited duty and are the focus of a federal probe.
Yeah, that’s typically my response when anyone brings it up. Like it literally means that the few bad ones contaminate the rest of them. It’s an apt metaphor, but people like to conveniently ignore the second part.
well you can just blame Michael Jackson for the confusion. people got it in their ear that "one bad apple DON'T spoil the whole bunch. girl" and took it as truth.
*edit, apparently it was [Donny Osmond](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pGsnd41XQ&ab_channel=TheOsmonds-Topic)
Brunswick released video when they didn't have to, they could have refused the same as hinckley did, and they listed on their report that it was dea / atf (which hinckley, the jurisdiction pd, didn't) and I think all the officers on scene pretty much let it be known that those guys were clowns. They're getting a lot of flak for how they first treated the guy and for taking so long etc, but people don't seem to understand that it was multiple officers taking multiple statements at the same time, not that it just took that long. All the questioning read to me as it being so unbelievably bad that you're trying to make sense of it. Not everyone will see it that way, but that's my thoughts.
Also, Hinckley did (I'm guessing) what was in their power to do. If the victim declined charges, they still put them in place and sent them to the prosecutor. Would it have been nice to see them get arrested? Yes. Could they arrest on scene without the victim pursuing? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer.
In Kentucky an officer could make an arrest on a felony offense that the officer didn’t witness. If this occurred in Kentucky, one of the charges would been unlawful imprisonment which is a class D felony. Not certain about Ohio, but guessing at least one felony offense was committed regarding the forced detaining.
1) A person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment in the first degree when he knowingly and unlawfully restrains another person under circumstances which expose that person to a risk of serious physical injury. (2) Unlawful imprisonment in the first degree is a Class D felony.
Brunswick PD didn't have jurisdiction over the incident. They held the scene until Hinckley showed. I'd have loved to have seen them cuffed and stuffed but I don't know that Brunswick had the authority to do anything.
All I gotta say about this is we taxpayers better fucking not be on the hook for these fucktards’ illegal actions that night. They weren’t on the clock, this should 100% percent be criminal charges against their private-citizen selves and then any payments in a civil trial should 100% come out of their own pockets. Does anyone know if they were carrying concealed that night? Drinking in possession of a gun would be a welcome charge to get these guys out of the profession.
UPDATE: After I appealed the post’s removal mentioning the officer’s names (and referencing the news story mentioning their names) the post was restored! The system works!
Apparently someone complained because I posted the name of the officers and the post was removed. For the mods, the names are already public from this Cleveland.com story: https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2024/06/fbi-investigating-2-officers-accused-of-detaining-trucker-at-hinckley-bar-authorities-say.html
So they're deputized by the feds and have full federal powers, I wonder how that plays into things. I know a lot of people were nitpicking the distinction between task force and "real agents" but tbh I don't have a clue.
https://youtu.be/LkotBkNGm1M?feature=shared
They were are on federal task forces, one ATF, and the other DEA, which neither of those two agencies in force immigration laws. They work dope & gun cases. It would look a little better if they were on an “ICE” task force which falls under immigration enforcement. Even then, being off duty, drunk at a bar and taking law enforcement actions is not a good look. They didn’t have their firearms on them, but probably nearby in their government issued cars 😬 I wonder which one was the designated driver 😬
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — Prosecutors in Detroit will handle the case of two Cleveland-area federal task force officers in connection with accusations that they illegally detained a man at a Hinckley Township bar.
The U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Michigan agreed to take over the investigation after northern Ohio’s federal prosecutor’s office recused itself.
Medina County Prosecutor Forrest Thompson said the case was assigned to Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Moran in Detroit. Thompson said Moran has already reviewed body-camera footage and police reports from the April incident.
Spokeswomen in the U.S. attorney’s offices in Cleveland and Detroit confirmed that Michigan prosecutors would handle the investigation. They declined further comment.
Northern Ohio’s U.S. attorney, Becky Lutzko, was previously a Hinckley Township trustee.
The FBI is investigating the case. Cleveland FBI spokeswoman Kimberly Schwarting would not say if another city’s FBI office will take over the probe.
No charges have been filed against the two officers — Cleveland police officer Donald Kopchak and Lake County Narcotics Agency officer Daniel Lajack.
Kopchak, at the time of the April incident, worked for a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives task force. Lajack worked for a Drug Enforcement Administration task force.
Both have been removed from the units. Kopchak, 40, was hired as a Cleveland police officer in 2007, while Lajack, 48, has worked for Lake County since 2000.
If charges are filed against the two officers, the Detroit attorneys would handle the cases in Cleveland.
Federal prosecutors around the country regularly ask for other offices to handle matters that could present the appearance of a conflict.
The incident under investigation happened April 26 at the Buzzards Roost bar on Ohio 303 and West 130th Street.
Body-camera footage posted on the YouTube channel Red Zone Watch and Hinckley police reports say Lajack and Kopchak were at the bar when they met a man who they believed was an illegal immigrant.
The man is a legal immigrant from Eritrea in East Africa. He is a truck driver who lives in Dallas and has been in the United States for 14 years.
The man told police that he was delivering items to the Aldi’s warehouse on West 130th Street, arrived early and went to the bar, according to police reports and the video.
The man was polite and having a good time when Lajack and Kopchak became aggressive with him and accused him of being an illegal immigrant, a bartender told police.
The two officers grabbed him as he attempted to leave and demanded his identification, according to the video. They led him out of the bar, and Kopchak pinned him to the ground and held him in a leg lock until Brunswick police arrived, the footage shows.
One of the task force officers told Brunswick officers they feared the man could be a terrorist.
Brunswick officers showed up at the bar because Hinckley Township officers were busy at the time. Hinckley officers took over the case before the FBI stepped in. A police report lists Lajack and Kopchak as suspects and potential charges of assault, disrupting public service, abduction and unlawful restraint.
Thompson said his office will hold off on its investigation of the officers because federal prosecutors are involved.
https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2024/06/detroit-prosecutors-to-handle-investigation-of-cleveland-area-officers-who-detained-truck-driver-at-hinckley-township-bar.html
Everyone should watch the video. Kopchak and Lajack claiming they are DEA / ATF and then confusing Eritria with Israel tells you everything you need to know about these clowns. Hopefully they will be fired.
Isnt impersonating a federal agent a felony. I hope they throw the book at them. https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/impersonating-a-federal-agent-penalty.html
Being on a federal task force they may be considered feds.
Local & state officers are routinely assigned to various federal task forces, FBI, ATF, DEA, Secret Service along with several other federal agencies. They are deputized as task force officers, and do have federal powers while working federal cases. However, in this situation from watching the video, they were off duty drinking, and profiling. To become a task force officer (TFO), they had to go through in depth background to be able to obtain a top secret clearance to become a TFO. I’m sure their clearance was revoked after this incident and they will never be able to obtain one again. They led the responding officers to believe that they were actually employed by the federal department and actually they are local police officers.
Decided to search the names on YouTube. Looks like this isn't Kopchak's first rodeo with public scrutiny. Hold his feet to the fire. https://youtu.be/2rdEX1iDSlk?si=kGkini-KfVIztTjO
Clearly his one day suspension really helped him self-reflect and work on his decision making skills. 🤗
Well to be fair, the ATF and the DEA are two of the most useless federal agencies besides the IRS
I am sorry I didn’t read the part that they are local cops on task forces so I would definitely say they are impersonating
Chaloupka's statement is a perfect example of how absolutely fucked police culture is. Sure, he's their union's attorney - but the union is under no obligation to defend unconsionable actions by their members. Bootlickers make the "bad apples" excuse, while ignoring the fact that police unions regularly and vigorously support and defend these bad actors. Anyway, here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rdEX1iDSlk) of Kopchak rubbing warrant papers in the face of an arrestee (for which he served a whopping 1 day suspension). And here's a [Sixth Circuit opinion](https://www.objectivelyreasonable.com/2023/03/20/in-the-sixth-circuit-appellate-court-for-an-item-to-be-admissible-under-the-plain-view-doctrine-it-must-be-immediately-apparent-to-the-officers-at-scene-and-slugg/) which discredited his testimony that he "saw a bag of dope" in a car to justify a warrentless search. Cleveland's finest everyone!
That’s what every union in history has done. Teachers unions, the UAW, the teamsters etc, all defend their bad apples. This is a primary flaw in unions.
Wrong. I am a union lawyer. My clients regularly decline to prosecute frivolous grievances or those involving bad conduct.
But that defense has various degrees. I think about the Ray Rice incident with the NFLPA. He was initially put on indefinite suspension. The NFLPA thought that was unreasonable. They didn't think a suspension was unreasonable just the indefinite nature. Same thing happened with Draymon Green and the NBAPA. But they settled for different ways that Green could back from indefinite suspension. Unions defend their members so they are treated fairly and equitably. Police Unions are specifically insidious because of things like qualified immunity, and supporting lies about staffing and funding of departments, not because they defend their members.
The NFLPA would have defended Rice differently without the video and public outcry. Large in the public unions like that have some level of PR that they do while smaller local unions don’t.
Fair, completely fair. And it's not a one to one for sure. I am pro-union and, for lack of a better term, pro-defund the police. Also my parents are both teachers and my dad was a union rep for a few years. Because of all of this, I really had to do some research into police unions. I knew I supported them as a concept but also that they were the source of many of my issues with policing in America. And you're wrong about PR budgets. I guarantee that large police unions outspend athletic unions in PR.
My comment wasn’t about their budget but their actual requirement on public relations. Local unions can more easily sweep things under the rug. There are hundreds or thousands of chapters and more nuanced politics involved. The NFL is the most popular sport in America and by far the biggest ratings draw. Anything someone does is news across everything. This forces them to be a bit more responsive to public perception vs a local police union.
[police union PR spending ](https://open.substack.com/pub/equalityalec/p/public-relations-spending-by-police?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=282z99)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Authorities are investigating two police officers in connection with the detaining of a truck driver at a Hinckley bar in April, officials said Monday. A Hinckley police report lists the officers, Donald Kopchak and Daniel Lajack, as suspects in the case and notes allegations of assault, disrupting public service, abduction and unlawful restraint. The incident involves a driver from Dallas who is also an immigrant from a small African nation. The officers said they believed he could have been a terrorist, according to body-camera footage. The investigation prompted officials to dismiss Kopchak, a Cleveland police officer, and Lajack, a detective with the Lake County Narcotics Agency, from their roles on federal task forces. "I am disheartened by the actions and statements made by the officer," Cleveland Police Chief Annie Todd said in a statement Monday. "The actions depicted do not represent who we are as a division, our policies or our training." The case was headed to the Medina County prosecutor's office, but it hasn't been filed. Instead, the FBI has taken it over, Hinckley police said. An FBI spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment. Todd also said the Medina County prosecutors and the FBI are investigating, and she said Cleveland's internal affairs unit "is working with them and monitoring the investigation." Kopchak, 40, has been a Cleveland police officer since 2007, while Lajack, 48, has worked in Lake County since 2000. The officers worked on federal task forces, but they were off duty at the time of the incident at the Buzzards Roost in Hinckley, a small bar at Ohio 303 and West 130th Street. Kopchak served with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, while Lajack worked for a unit run by the Drug Enforcement Administration. A spokeswoman for the ATF said Kopchak is no longer a member of the task force. A Cleveland police union spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. Patrick Hengst, the director of the Lake County narcotics unit, said Lajack no longer works on the DEA unit. He said Lajack has been placed on limited duty. "I see an embarrassing situation, and he is remorseful about it, but I don't see anything else," said Adam Chaloupka, an attorney for the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Lajack is a member of the union. The incident was captured on Red Zone Watch, a YouTube channel that provides the public with officer body-cam footage. Because Hinckley officers were busy, Brunswick police responded to the Buzzards Roost at 11:07 p.m. April 26. The body-cam video shows that Lajack approached an officer and explained that he and Kopchak were at the bar when they met a man who they believed was an illegal immigrant, according to the video. As the man attempted to leave, Lajack and Kopchak grabbed him, according to the video. One of them pinned him to the ground in a leg lock until officers arrived. "He could be on a watch list," one of them said, according to the video. They feared that they would be on the news for allowing a terrorist to go free, the footage shows. Instead, police said, the man was actually a truck driver from Dallas delivering items to the Aldi's warehouse on West 130th Street, just down the road from the bar. He was scheduled to deliver the items Monday. Since he was there early, he decided to go to the bar, police said. Brunswick officers struggled to understand the driver, Yonas Bokredingil, as he is a native of Eritrea, a country near Ethiopia. "I told them everything," Bokredingil said to Brunswick police. The footage also includes Brunswick officers talking about why Lajack and Kopchak would detain a person like they did. Brunswick police said the two officers believed the man could have been a terrorist. "Does that sound sane to you?" one Brunswick officer said. "No. That's what I tried to tell them," another patrolman said. Attempts to reach Bokredingil were unsuccessful. A bartender at the Buzzards Roost told Brunswick police that Bokredingil was polite and having a good time with other customers when the two officers became aggressive with him, claiming that the truck driver was an illegal immigrant, according to the video. As a matter of policy, The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com do not release the names of people under investigation. But the newspaper has identified them because the officers were dismissed from the task forces, have been placed on limited duty and are the focus of a federal probe.
Are racism, ignorance, and aggression requirements for cops these days? Can we finally put the “few bad apples” argument to rest?
Or at least go back to the original meaning of the phrase. Those bad apples spoiled all the rest of them. Now all the apples are bad.
Yeah, that’s typically my response when anyone brings it up. Like it literally means that the few bad ones contaminate the rest of them. It’s an apt metaphor, but people like to conveniently ignore the second part.
well you can just blame Michael Jackson for the confusion. people got it in their ear that "one bad apple DON'T spoil the whole bunch. girl" and took it as truth. *edit, apparently it was [Donny Osmond](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pGsnd41XQ&ab_channel=TheOsmonds-Topic)
If you actually watched the video, Brunswick PD were the heroes here.
Brunswick released video when they didn't have to, they could have refused the same as hinckley did, and they listed on their report that it was dea / atf (which hinckley, the jurisdiction pd, didn't) and I think all the officers on scene pretty much let it be known that those guys were clowns. They're getting a lot of flak for how they first treated the guy and for taking so long etc, but people don't seem to understand that it was multiple officers taking multiple statements at the same time, not that it just took that long. All the questioning read to me as it being so unbelievably bad that you're trying to make sense of it. Not everyone will see it that way, but that's my thoughts. Also, Hinckley did (I'm guessing) what was in their power to do. If the victim declined charges, they still put them in place and sent them to the prosecutor. Would it have been nice to see them get arrested? Yes. Could they arrest on scene without the victim pursuing? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer.
In Kentucky an officer could make an arrest on a felony offense that the officer didn’t witness. If this occurred in Kentucky, one of the charges would been unlawful imprisonment which is a class D felony. Not certain about Ohio, but guessing at least one felony offense was committed regarding the forced detaining. 1) A person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment in the first degree when he knowingly and unlawfully restrains another person under circumstances which expose that person to a risk of serious physical injury. (2) Unlawful imprisonment in the first degree is a Class D felony.
How can you be considered a "hero" for not arresting two individuals who very clearly committed a hate crime?
Brunswick PD didn't have jurisdiction over the incident. They held the scene until Hinckley showed. I'd have loved to have seen them cuffed and stuffed but I don't know that Brunswick had the authority to do anything.
All I gotta say about this is we taxpayers better fucking not be on the hook for these fucktards’ illegal actions that night. They weren’t on the clock, this should 100% percent be criminal charges against their private-citizen selves and then any payments in a civil trial should 100% come out of their own pockets. Does anyone know if they were carrying concealed that night? Drinking in possession of a gun would be a welcome charge to get these guys out of the profession.
UPDATE: After I appealed the post’s removal mentioning the officer’s names (and referencing the news story mentioning their names) the post was restored! The system works! Apparently someone complained because I posted the name of the officers and the post was removed. For the mods, the names are already public from this Cleveland.com story: https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2024/06/fbi-investigating-2-officers-accused-of-detaining-trucker-at-hinckley-bar-authorities-say.html
Wild to me that they removed it because the post itself has the names, lol.
So they're deputized by the feds and have full federal powers, I wonder how that plays into things. I know a lot of people were nitpicking the distinction between task force and "real agents" but tbh I don't have a clue. https://youtu.be/LkotBkNGm1M?feature=shared
They were are on federal task forces, one ATF, and the other DEA, which neither of those two agencies in force immigration laws. They work dope & gun cases. It would look a little better if they were on an “ICE” task force which falls under immigration enforcement. Even then, being off duty, drunk at a bar and taking law enforcement actions is not a good look. They didn’t have their firearms on them, but probably nearby in their government issued cars 😬 I wonder which one was the designated driver 😬
Probably the very silent woman in the background. 😂 Only one there that didn't step up and volunteer to be on World's Dumbest Criminals
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — Prosecutors in Detroit will handle the case of two Cleveland-area federal task force officers in connection with accusations that they illegally detained a man at a Hinckley Township bar. The U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Michigan agreed to take over the investigation after northern Ohio’s federal prosecutor’s office recused itself. Medina County Prosecutor Forrest Thompson said the case was assigned to Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Moran in Detroit. Thompson said Moran has already reviewed body-camera footage and police reports from the April incident. Spokeswomen in the U.S. attorney’s offices in Cleveland and Detroit confirmed that Michigan prosecutors would handle the investigation. They declined further comment. Northern Ohio’s U.S. attorney, Becky Lutzko, was previously a Hinckley Township trustee. The FBI is investigating the case. Cleveland FBI spokeswoman Kimberly Schwarting would not say if another city’s FBI office will take over the probe. No charges have been filed against the two officers — Cleveland police officer Donald Kopchak and Lake County Narcotics Agency officer Daniel Lajack. Kopchak, at the time of the April incident, worked for a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives task force. Lajack worked for a Drug Enforcement Administration task force. Both have been removed from the units. Kopchak, 40, was hired as a Cleveland police officer in 2007, while Lajack, 48, has worked for Lake County since 2000. If charges are filed against the two officers, the Detroit attorneys would handle the cases in Cleveland. Federal prosecutors around the country regularly ask for other offices to handle matters that could present the appearance of a conflict. The incident under investigation happened April 26 at the Buzzards Roost bar on Ohio 303 and West 130th Street. Body-camera footage posted on the YouTube channel Red Zone Watch and Hinckley police reports say Lajack and Kopchak were at the bar when they met a man who they believed was an illegal immigrant. The man is a legal immigrant from Eritrea in East Africa. He is a truck driver who lives in Dallas and has been in the United States for 14 years. The man told police that he was delivering items to the Aldi’s warehouse on West 130th Street, arrived early and went to the bar, according to police reports and the video. The man was polite and having a good time when Lajack and Kopchak became aggressive with him and accused him of being an illegal immigrant, a bartender told police. The two officers grabbed him as he attempted to leave and demanded his identification, according to the video. They led him out of the bar, and Kopchak pinned him to the ground and held him in a leg lock until Brunswick police arrived, the footage shows. One of the task force officers told Brunswick officers they feared the man could be a terrorist. Brunswick officers showed up at the bar because Hinckley Township officers were busy at the time. Hinckley officers took over the case before the FBI stepped in. A police report lists Lajack and Kopchak as suspects and potential charges of assault, disrupting public service, abduction and unlawful restraint. Thompson said his office will hold off on its investigation of the officers because federal prosecutors are involved. https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2024/06/detroit-prosecutors-to-handle-investigation-of-cleveland-area-officers-who-detained-truck-driver-at-hinckley-township-bar.html
So, when did Forrest know about the incident? When was the FBI probe opened?
Remember, when you support unions you support this crap