CLEVELAND — The family of an African American man, who was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer when he was off-duty in 2019, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.
On April 9, 2020, according to court documents, officer Garcia was on his way to begin his shift when he stopped his car and confronted Desmond and a friend, accusing them of taking a soda from an open delivery truck. The lawsuit states that Garcia eventually shot into Franklin’s car, killing him. Lawyers for the Franklin family claim Garcia never identified himself as being a police officer and was not in uniform.
The case was investigated by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office presented the case to a grand jury in February 2021, which decided not to indict Garcia, stating that they found that the evidence “did not even meet the standard of a probable cause under which the grand jury may in issue an indictment or a charge.”
The lawsuit named Garcia, but not any form of city government.
“This whole case is a nightmare. We never seen Jose Garcia, I don’t know who he is; he could be standing behind me in the grocery store. He can be behind me at a red light. They told me nothing about this case. All I know is my son was shot in the temple by an off-duty police officer, and that was all I know,” said Emmanuel Franklin, the father of Desmond.
Emmanuel was joined by lawyer Terry Gilbert and Desmond’s siblings Monday as they discussed the lawsuit which claims Franklin’s son, a father of four, was unjustifiably shot and killed.
“The investigation that was done in this case, we feel was inadequate, didn’t answer all the question that the family needs to know and the community needs to know. So this lawsuit is a vehicle to get to the truth, get to the facts and get justice,” said Gilbert, an attorney with Friedman, Gilbert and Gerhardstein.
“There’s also some witnesses surrounding the situation, who saw certain parts, we need to talk to them. We need to take their depositions under oath, along with other police and EMS that showed up that day,” said Gilbert.
Gilbert said there could be legal action taken against the city of Cleveland in the future and he expects the legal action to go on for a while.
“I depended on the police to protect my family, to protect us, to protect our community and we didn’t get that. Instead, we got an angry officer shooting five times in a moving vehicle at 2:00 in the afternoon. It’s unheard of,” said Emmanuel.
Spectrum News 1 reached out to Cleveland Police and the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association for comment. Cleveland Police responded and said they do not comment on pending litigation. Spectrum News 1 has not yet heard back from the association.
