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GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — A Cleveland suburb will pay $80,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a man who denied threatening two officers and says he was only laughing and making fun of them.
The settlement announced this past week also requires the city of Garfield Heights to train officers on the First Amendment and how it applies to their job.
Robert Spencer was arrested in July 2017 after two officers said he threatened and shoved one of them.
A jury later cleared Spencer of the charges. He said in the lawsuit that he never became aggressive with the officers.
Cleveland.com reports a video shot by Spencer's girlfriend appeared to contradict some of what the officers said in their reports.
https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice ... garfi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It shows Spencer insulting the officers, referring to them as "Beavis & Butthead" and "Elvis."
It appears to show Spencer minimally resisting arrest, a charge he later faced among others and was acquitted of at trial.
Spencer, 30, filed suit this week against the city of Garfield Heights and officers. He said he was joking around with neighborhood children and that the officers approached him and claimed that he threatened them. He said he did nothing of the sort, that officers concocted a story after he insulted them and violated his First Amendment rights.
The alleged resisting arrest is probably at :40 The video is directed towards the man most of the time but not at the moment he allegedly shoved the officer. It didn't appear intentional on the part of the person videoing it as he was moving back and forth at times.
The girlfriend follows Spencer and the officers as they put him in the back of an SUV. Simia tells dispatch that officers did not use a Taser and that they activated their body cameras. Attorneys said the city produced no body camera footage for Spencer's criminal trial.
The girlfriend asks Simia why Spencer is under arrest, and Simia says it's because Spencer menaced a police officer.
"I mean, it is what it is, you know? He needs to watch what he says to police. He can't threaten to assault us and then he can't talk and act like this. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut when we came out here," Simia tells Rochester.
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