False 911 Call Leads to HUGE Lawsuit

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers personal property false 9-1-1 calls and hate crimes and is brought to us by both police activities channel and cleveland.com's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve in the spring of 2016 41 year old united arab emirates citizen ahmed al-manali and his wife temporarily moved to the united states while mr almanali underwent medical treatment at the cleveland clinic in ohio on june 29 2016 mr al-manali traveled to the fairfield inn and suites in the nearby town of avon to seek accommodations but was informed that they were fully booked due to the republican national convention taking place in cleveland at the time mr al-manali asked the attendants at the front desk for recommendations for hotels that may have vacancy and the attendance told him to wait in the lobby while they print a list of hotels that he can call as mr almanali took a seat in the lobby the avon police department received a phone call from one of the attendant's sister avon police sergeant rupal hi my sister worked at the fairfield inn on colorado avenue and avon she is a desk worker okay there is a male in a full headdress with multiple disposable phones pledging his um hold on pledging his allegiance or something to isis okay he's very panicky the attendant's father also called and verified everything that the previous caller had reported she said she's in the back i have the text uh she says she's terrified so okay all right thank you avon officers arrive on the scene minutes later and detain mr almanali at gunpoint once the officers place mr aminoli into handcuffs they begin searching his pockets you said she's by himself not good this i'm curious and this is good not good yeah it's not good it's right make a sweep this place i don't know he's got it she came by her she said he's by himself anybody else just stayed by himself let's roll this guy down make sure he's got nothing hot we will find out relax relax relax let's draw her leg up says he works for the embassy that's nice lift your leg up broken with my telephone also yeah during the search one of the officers tosses mr almanali's phone and in later footage it appears that the phone was broken it is widely accepted that police officers can cause reasonable and necessary damage to an individual's personal property during a search based on a warrant for example in the 1979 case of dahlia vs united states the supreme court held that quote it is generally left to the discretion of the executing officers to determine the details of how best to proceed with the performance of a search authorized by warrant subject of course to the general fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures officers executing search warrants on occasion must damage property in order to perform their duty however in the 1998 case of united states vs ramirez the supreme court clarified that quote excessive or unnecessary destruction of property in the course of a search may violate the fourth amendment even though the entry itself is lawful and the fruits of the search are not subject to suppression the fourth circuit court of appeals applied the holdings in these two cases in the 2020 case of cybernet llc versus david stating that quote during the course of a search incidental damage to property may occur this is not at all to suggest that officers may ransack premises at will whether property damage is constitutionally excessive is most comfortably assessed under a standard of objective reasonableness thus we hold that an officer's conduct does not violate the fourth amendment if the destruction of property is as an objective matter reasonably necessary to execute a lawful search warrant courts have generally also concluded that probable cause to search justifies the reasonable and necessary destruction of property as the eighth circuit court of appeals determined in the 2008 case of u.s versus santana aguirre holding that quote consensual searches generally cannot be destructive cutting or destroying an object during a search requires either explicit consent for the destructive search or articulable suspicion that supports a finding that probable cause exists to do the destructive search while the federal circuits do not agree on whether a general consent to a search includes consent to damage personal property as part of the search even the circuits that allow damage to an individual's personal property during a consensual search agree that the damage must be reasonable and related to the search because there is no reasonable basis for which the officer needed to throw mr almanali's phone as part of the search a court would likely find that its destruction was a violation of the fourth amendment as mr almanali is searched one of the officers enters the hotel to speak to the staff members who prompted the 911 he wanted a month's stay he was leaving july 13th to the 14th around there and i helped tried to help him as much as possible everyone said that they were booked and they couldn't help him i told him and he wanted to sit in a hobby he didn't want to leave so you said you guys were booked yeah we said we were booked everywhere he called this book too it's summer people sure absolutely um so i mean that's what he had two phones he was searching it on my phone that's really all that i know it just freaks me out because he didn't say anything else no it's just because the call we got is that someone said that he was pledging his allegiance to isis stop your uh search yeah we're good hey your lp's back up we're gonna switch a lot real quick right here it's a bunch of sim cards like six or seven different ones ampersand stand out the front desk attendant informed the officers that mr ahmanalli never pledged allegiance to isis in direct contrast to the information her sister provided during the 9-1-1 call section 2917.32 of the ohio revised code which defines the crime of making false alarms states that quote no person shall report to any law enforcement agency an alleged offense or other incident within its concern knowing that such offense did not occur similarly section 128.32 states that quote no person shall knowingly use the telephone number of a 9-1-1 system established under this chapter to report an emergency if the person knows that no emergency exists therefore under the ohio law that applies to making a false call the attendant's sister could only be charged criminally if she made the call knowing her allegations were false in order to convict an individual of a criminal offense the government must prove that the individual both committed a criminal act referred to as actus rheas and that the individual had a criminal mental state which is called men's rhea the mental state required for a conviction varies from crime to crime and is defined by statute for ohio's making false alarm statute the men's ria is knowingly which as section 2901.22 of the ohio revised code explains means that quote a person has knowledge of circumstances when the person is aware that such circumstances probably exist when knowledge of the existence of a particular fact is an element of an offense such knowledge is established if a person subjectively believes that there is a high probability of its existence and fails to make inquiry or acts with a conscious purpose to avoid learning the fact under this standard the attendant's sister could not be prosecuted for making false alarms based on her allegations if the 9-1-1 call was simply the result of a mistake or misunderstanding however if enough evidence existed to prove that the sister knew mr amenali probably didn't pledge allegiance to isis and she made the call anyway she could potentially be convicted for making false alarms i'm so sorry it's because he kept coming up here and asking questions and stuff like that unfortunately the call that came to us was that he was screaming pledging his allegiance to isis and waving his phones around that's a very big different picture than what happened have two phones but he was talking to a guest out here in the lobby who was trying to find some directions and i think i've got that card up there it was a um hershey burger organic farm one five five i'm not saying it's nothing but the call that we got is nothing what happened so i think things got a little blown out of proportion i apologize someone dressed like that just holding phones isn't enough to call and say they're pledging their allegiance to isis that's a totally different ballgame right well i didn't know who all right just sit tight nobody nobody leave let me go try to smooth things over with this gentleman nobody ever said anything about isis she called her sister because she was nervous because he looked like that and had too much i don't care let's go dust this gentleman off the attendant admits that she was afraid of mr aminoli because of the way he dressed and the fact that he had two cell phones which could be considered a form of religious bias hate crime legislation which exists on the federal level and in the vast majority of states either makes the punishments for certain crimes harsher if they are motivated by a bias against a protected group of people or creates new crimes that include a bias motivation as an element of the offense section 29 27.12 of the ohio revised code defines the crime of ethnic intimidation as committing aggravated menacing menacing criminal damaging or endangering criminal mischief or certain types of telecommunications harassment because of the race color religion or national origin of another federal hate crime legislation which is applicable in every state includes section 249 of title 18 of the united states code which criminalizes causing or attempting to cause bodily injury to another because of their actual or perceived race color religion national origin gender sexual orientation gender identity or disability because neither the state nor federal hate crime laws apply to making false alarms even if the 911 caller was convicted of this offense she could not also be charged with a hate crime if her actions were motivated by religious bias stephen after receiving the order to stand down the officers returned mr almanali's property and released him from handcuffs eventually the officers recovered one of mr almanali's phones that they had thrown into the bushes nearby and he was able to call a friend of his who was also a police officer to translate as the officers were speaking to mr almanali's friend he suddenly collapsed and lost consciousness luckily a fire squad was already on the scene and they began rendering aid immediately mr almanali had just undergone open heart surgery a few months prior to this interaction and he was hospitalized following this incident after displaying symptoms of a stroke mr almanali was released a few days later and he went on to file a lawsuit against the avon officers and the hotel which was owned by marriott international inc the avon police department issued a formal apology in person and initially stated that they would consider bringing charges against the 911 callers the lorraine county prosecutor's office investigated the incident and presented evidence to a grand jury but the jury declined to indict them on any charges mr almanali's lawsuit was initially seeking 200 million dollars in damages but after a three-year-long court battle he eventually settled for an undisclosed amount in 2019. overall the avon officers get a c-plus because although they apprehended mr ahmenali appropriately based on the information available to them at the time they also demonstrated a reckless disregard for the safety and security of mr almanali's personal property as we have discussed previously on ata the chain of communication between 9-1-1 callers and police officers is often riddled with inaccuracies and tends to dictate the overall tone of almost every interaction it is difficult to fault the officers for responding in full force to a report of a potential terrorist attack and i commend the officers for having the patience and discipline to detain mr almanali without violence it should also be noted that mr almanali was only in handcuffs for approximately seven minutes before the officers were able to figure out that it was a false 9-1-1 call and released him all that said the officers also made a few disrespectful remarks and destroyed mr ahmanali's phone for no apparent reason it could be argued that the officers tossed the phones to prevent the activation of a device but the same goal could have been achieved by simply removing the phones from mr almanali's possession the officer's complete lack of compassion after destroying the phone adds merit to the notion that the officer did so maliciously most of the avon officers did their job efficiently and professionally but a few of them could certainly be reevaluated as for mr almanali i cannot rightfully issue a grade to an individual who was a victim of a false 9-1-1 report based almost purely on his appearance mr almanali is also not a native of the united states so he may lack the necessary societal and cultural context to fully understand the civil liberties associated with the constitution despite the chaos of this interaction mr almanali managed to remain calm and composed the entire time and complied with the officers without resistance as mentioned in a previous episode of ata understanding the civil liberties afforded to citizens and visitors of different countries would require intimate knowledge of the country's history political landscape and current state of policing and mr almanali is not required or expected to know these things before visiting the u.s it was later alleged in mr almanali's lawsuit that the desk clerk who was questioned by the officers did indeed send a text message to her sister and father stating that mr almanali was quote declaring himself to isis there is no doubt some degree of injustice remains in the wake of this case but i commend mr almanali for following up this encounter with the proper legal action and securing compensation for his experience let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out my second channel for more police interaction content [Music] you

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 1,939,094

Rating: 4.8962665 out of 5

Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: 6id-R6oPDH4

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Mon May 31 2021

Reddit Comments

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[u/Remm1ngton]

The video is sort of long but I will summarize. Essentially the gentleman in this video dresses in traditional garb common in middle eastern nations. The man went to a hotel where he tried to stay for the night but was told he couldn't because they were all booked up. The man waited in the lobby and the front desk person called her sister and said that the man was some sort of ISIS devotee and she texted her dad the same thing. The sister and dad later called police to arrest the man. The man was cleared and no one was arrested.

[u/[deleted]]

Kinda wholesome of Mr. Almanali when he’s just laying there being searched and says, “No good this”.

[u/saucyclams]

How ignorant/racist ppl impact public funds.

[u/jokersleuth]

It's quite common for international travelers to have 2 or more phones and sim cards..

[u/BilTheButcher]

If I remember correctly he was a high ranking official in the UAE.

[u/scratchedraw]

Wow, I remember seeing the bodycam footage here a while back. I never knew what happened next until now.

[u/Vitroswhyuask]

I tried to watch that video but sooo many ads. Can anyone provide a synopsis?