THE McCANN FILES: PART I

A Chief, a Complaint, and a City That Wanted Silence

How a Routine Visit to Lorain City Hall Unraveled a Pattern of Retaliation, Concealment, and Police Power That Reached Far Beyond a Single Incident

By Aaron Christopher Knapp

Lorain Politics Unplugged
October 2025

THE DAY LORAIN CITY HALL TURNED ON ITS OWN CAMERA

What really happened when a citizen walked into City Hall and why the City still wants the footage buried.

On the morning of June 1, 2023, I walked into Lorain City Hall expecting nothing more than the usual inconvenience of local government. I had a records request to file, a question for the Prosecutor’s Office, and maybe a stop upstairs if time allowed. What should have been a routine visit instead became the first chapter in a retaliation campaign that now sits in federal court under the case caption Knapp v. City of Lorain, et al.

The lobby camera recorded everything. It shows me placing my belongings on the conveyor, speaking calmly, and waiting to be cleared. There is no escalation. No confrontation. No refusal. The environment is quiet, controlled, and uneventful.

Yet the written reports that followed describe something entirely different. Retired Lorain police lieutenant Larry Swanger, whose Garrity-protected statement became the centerpiece of the department’s narrative, wrote that I was confrontational, unpredictable, and aggressive. His description cannot be reconciled with the video. Not a single frame supports what he claimed. The recording shows the opposite. The only raised voice captured inside that lobby is his.

Swanger later left the police department and resurfaced inside the city as the dog catcher. Before that move, the city awarded him what it called an exceptional appointment that paid him 33 dollars and 30 cents an hour for the first year and about 35 dollars and 75 cents afterward. That level of trust matters because his version of June 1 was treated as authoritative inside City Hall even though the camera contradicts nearly every line of his report.

The auxiliary officers followed his lead. Their statements mirrored one another in tone and structure as if written from a single template rather than independent observation. They repeated the same false descriptions of my behavior. They omitted their own escalations. And they contained a detail that becomes more absurd the closer you look at it. While their paperwork implied that a citizen entering City Hall posed a risk, one of those very officers was later reprimanded for carrying a prohibited credit card knife inside the building on the same day.

The video confirms I had no weapon. The reprimand confirms an officer did. That fact undercuts every insinuation in their statements. It also exposes why the city continues to fight the release of the full lobby footage. The tape does not support the story the department wrote. It destroys it.

This was not confusion. This was not poor memory. This was not a difference in perception. It was a coordinated attempt to turn a routine screening into the foundation for ejecting a resident who had recently used his voice in a way the department wanted to silence.

Because the June 1 incident did not happen in isolation. It happened weeks after I challenged the Lorain Police Department over its unconstitutional decision to shut down public comments on its Facebook page, a forum that had been open for years. I wrote to Chief James McCann and cited the law directly. I referenced Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump and Davison v. Randall, two federal decisions that hold that once the government opens a space for public dialogue, it cannot close it to eliminate criticism. I asked a simple, direct question. Were comments reopening or was a lawsuit necessary.

McCann did not answer. Instead, he responded with a personal attack. He accused me of making assumptions. He suggested I lacked judgment. He refused to engage with the law. The issue was not the question I asked. It was the fact that I asked it.

Under Knight, Davison, and R.C. 2921.45, the government cannot weaponize its authority to punish protected speech. Yet when I walked into City Hall on June 1, the department behaved as if the First Amendment did not exist. The officers’ reports were drafted as if the camera would never be reviewed. The narrative was written before the ink hit the page. And every step after that morning followed the same pattern.

They could not silence the law. So they tried to silence the person quoting it.

This is where the retaliation began.

And it only gets worse from here.

THE TRESPASS THAT NEVER EXISTED

A lieutenant stood outside City Hall, asserted authority he did not have, and threatened arrest over a trespass order that did not exist.

There is a moment from June 1 that the City of Lorain still cannot explain, and it happened outside the building, not inside. After the officers escalated a perfectly routine entry screening, I stepped outside and asked for a supervisor. I wanted a higher-ranking officer to review what had just happened. Lieutenant Larry Swanger responded by saying, “I am a lieutenant.”

That answer was not good enough. A lieutenant is not the end of the chain of authority in Lorain. So I asked to speak with a captain.

Swanger stepped back inside for a brief moment. When he returned, instead of bringing a captain or any true supervisory oversight, he delivered a threat. He told me that I was trespassed from City Hall. He told me I would be arrested if I returned without so-called “proper business.” His tone was not instructional. It was punitive. His words were not procedural. They were retaliatory.

The problem is simple. There was no trespass order. There had never been one. There was no legal basis for issuing one. There was no record, no notice, and no due process. Nothing existed at all.

In his Garrity-protected statement, Swanger later tried to justify the threat by claiming that I had been to City Hall numerous times before and that I “knew the rules.” That claim is false. Before June 1, I had been to City Hall one time. That visit was to see the Mayor about the McCann matter and the censorship on the police Facebook page. I was not warned. I was not trespassed. I was not told I violated any rule.

The attempt to retroactively invent a history of “knowing the rules” only highlights the dishonesty in the narrative.

Lieutenant Tim Thompson later attempted to reinforce Swanger’s version by claiming that I had supposedly admitted to being trespassed from “numerous buildings.” That statement is also false. No such admission exists on video. No such conversation occurred. There is no document to support it. It appears only in the officers’ written versions, created after they realized the lobby camera contradicted them.

What happened outside City Hall was simple. A lieutenant denied access to supervision by refusing to bring out a captain. He then used that same lack of oversight to impose a threat of arrest based on a trespass that did not exist. Under constitutional law, a citizen has the right to access a public building unless a lawful exclusion has been issued with actual notice and a legitimate reason. None of that occurred on June 1.

Threatening arrest without a lawful trespass order is a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It is the kind of coercive conduct that the Supreme Court addressed in Nieves v. Bartlett, Hartman v. Moore, and Mt. Healthy. When the threat is motivated by a citizen’s protected speech, it becomes retaliation.

Months later, when I confronted Mayor Jack Bradley at a Block Watch meeting and asked him why I had been told I was trespassed from City Hall, he offered the explanation that closes the loop.

“We must have mistaken you for someone else.”

This admission destroys the city’s justification. If it was a mistake, then the lieutenant had no authority to issue the threat. If it was not a mistake, then someone is lying to cover misconduct. Either way, it confirms the same conclusion. I was threatened with arrest for entering a public building because the department did not like what I had been saying.

The City of Lorain has never produced a trespass order. They cannot produce one. It does not exist.

But the threat was real. The intimidation was deliberate. And it fits perfectly into the larger retaliation pattern that began the moment I questioned the police department about its unlawful censorship of public discussion.

HOW A FALSE POLICE NARRATIVE LEAPED INTO MY CAREER

The retaliation left City Hall and entered my workplace, my professional licenses, and the agencies that relied on me.

Once Chief McCann exported his version of the June 1 event outside the police department, the damage did not stay contained. It spread. It moved into places where police chiefs do not belong. It entered hallways where no one had ever filed a complaint against me. It reached people who had no reason to be discussing me at all.

The retaliation became institutional.

In the days following the incident, McCann emailed Juvenile Court Administrator Tim Weitzel, telling him I was “becoming unhinged” and tying that claim directly to the City Hall encounter. Weitzel had no role in City Hall operations. He had no authority over building security. He had no investigative relevance. Yet he received the false narrative anyway.

Emails later obtained revealed that Weitzel did not keep the message to himself. He repeated it. He forwarded concerns. He discussed me with outside agencies and with individuals who had influence over my employment and credentials. He communicated with people at Applewood Centers and other agencies in a way that made his role far larger than the law allowed.

There was no legitimate reason for any of this.

To understand the seriousness of this chain of communication, it helps to look at the findings of every professional body that evaluated the complaints sparked by these emails.

The Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board reviewed the accusations connected to McCann’s email narrative. They found no misconduct. The CDCA Board reviewed the same constellation of allegations. They dismissed them. The unemployment hearing evaluated all the claims raised through the retaliation channels. It ruled fully in my favor.

All three bodies independently reached the same conclusion. None of the accusations had merit. All of them traced back to the City’s narrative.

The evidence shows exactly how it happened.

Before the June 1 incident, no employer had negative documentation regarding me. No agency reported instability. No supervisor had concerns. The retaliation pipeline only began flowing once McCann transmitted his version of the story to Weitzel. From there it moved like electricity across a network.

The City wanted the false narrative to stick. The professional bodies did not. The disconnect between those two realities exposes the truth.

The allegations were not organic. They were manufactured.

THE BOARD COMPLAINTS WERE BUILT ON THE SAME FOUNDATION OF LIES

The professional complaints filed against me after June 1 did not arise from clients, coworkers, or supervisors. They arose from the City’s internal gossip loop and from the same individuals who had received or repeated McCann’s message.

One complaint claimed I had fabricated events. Another suggested I had misrepresented interactions. A third insinuated that I lacked emotional stability. Every one of those allegations mirrors language used in the City’s false reports and emails.

When the licensing bodies reviewed the evidence, they dismissed everything. The CDCA Board stated that there was no basis for discipline. The Social Work Board found no violation. Both clarified that the accusations lacked factual grounding.

Those findings now stand in direct contrast with the City’s narrative. The boards relied on evidence. The City relied on rumor, retaliation, and the repetition of false claims.

Nothing reveals the disconnect more clearly than the fact that the City used the false narrative to interfere with my work as a Guardian ad Litem. That effort failed too. The GAL program quietly reinstated me once the truth surfaced.

Government officials cannot retaliate against protected speech by infecting a citizen’s professional life with accusations they know are false.

This pattern is retaliation under the framework of Mt. Healthy and Hartman v. Moore. Government officials cannot retaliate against protected speech by infecting a citizen’s professional life with accusations they know are false. They cannot interfere with employment to punish criticism. They cannot weaponize government positions to create a trail of false concerns.

But that is exactly what happened.

THE RETALIATION WAS NOT SUBTLE. IT WAS SYSTEMIC.

McCann’s email was not the end of it. It was the spark. After that message circulated, communications inside city government shifted. Requests began routing to the Law Department instead of being addressed. Public records became delayed or denied. Emails vanished only to reappear later. OPS refused to investigate the behavior of the officers involved. Internal Affairs refused to review the video.

Even the City Law Department joined the pattern by shielding officers, protecting the false narrative, and creating procedural walls designed to exhaust rather than inform.

Through this entire cascade, one fact remains constant.

Not one of these retaliatory actions existed before the Facebook censorship dispute. Every one of them appeared after it.

The City responded to my protected speech with a coordinated campaign to discredit me, punish me, isolate me professionally, and eliminate my ability to challenge wrongdoing.

That is not civic administration. It is retaliation.
That is not policy. It is punishment.
That is not oversight. It is political enforcement.

And it all began with a lieutenant who issued a fake trespass order and a police chief who sent a false narrative into the hands of someone who could bring it to the rest of the system.

THE OPS REPORT THAT PROTECTED THE LIE

How the City’s internal “investigation” ignored the video, embraced false statements, and revealed the cover-up it was designed to prevent.

When the City of Lorain finally issued its official conclusion to the complaint I filed against Lieutenant Larry Swanger and Auxiliary Officer Palmer, the letter arrived with the veneer of professionalism. The Office of Professional Standards stated it had reviewed recordings, documents, witness interviews, and all related materials. It framed its findings as the product of a thorough process. On paper, it looked like a complete investigation. A closer look shows something very different.

OPS accepted the officers’ statements as fact and treated the video as a formality rather than the central piece of evidence. The letter repeats Swanger’s Garrity narrative without questioning any part of it. According to Swanger, he walked into a “heated argument” between me and Palmer and saw me “invading” the auxiliary officer’s personal space. He claimed he placed a hand on my shoulder only to create distance and described his actions as a simple “touch.” OPS declared that this version was supported by “other witness interviews.” The lobby camera contradicts the entire story.

There was no heated argument. There was no confrontation. There was no personal space violation. There was no escalation. The video shows a quiet lobby, a routine entry, and no behavior that required intervention. It also shows the moment outside where Swanger placed his hand on me while delivering the false trespass threat. OPS acknowledged the contact but decided to characterize it as reasonable conduct rather than address the fact that the entire justification for the contact was fabricated.

The letter concludes that Swanger committed no civil rights violation and no criminal offense. It does so by quoting the assault statute and claiming my allegations did not meet the legal definition of harm. What the letter avoids entirely is the actual issue: a lieutenant issued a baseless trespass order outside a public building and threatened arrest without legal authority. OPS did not address that violation at all.

To reinforce its conclusion, the letter labels me a “vexatious complainant.” There is no legal meaning behind that phrase. It is not part of the Ohio Revised Code. It appears nowhere in the complaint process. It is an internal accusation inserted into the letter to undermine the credibility of the citizen rather than confront the contradictions in the officers’ claims. It is not a finding. It is an insult.

One detail in the letter exposes more than the City intended. OPS sustained part of the complaint against Auxiliary Officer Palmer, stating that he violated departmental rules and the City of Lorain Employee Handbook. The finding is carefully phrased, but the truth behind it is not complicated. Palmer was the one carrying the credit card knife inside City Hall that day. The same officer whose version of events OPS relied upon was found to have violated security rules at the security checkpoint itself. The city disciplined him quietly, then tried to use his statements to validate the lieutenant who issued a false trespass warning.

OPS attempted to bolster its conclusion by citing signage and security policies, claiming that established rules governed the officers’ actions on June 1. The letter presents these policies as if they were in place at the time of the incident. The memo that created those rules was dated June 5, not June 1. OPS did not address the timeline. The investigation needed the policy to exist on June 1, so it acted as if it did.

The letter ends by announcing a split conclusion. Swanger is exonerated. Palmer is partially sustained. Every allegation that challenged the officers’ conduct or contradicted the written reports is dismissed as meritless. Every fact inconvenient to the City is ignored or reframed. The department investigated itself and cleared itself while acknowledging just enough internal wrongdoing to pretend the process had integrity.

The OPS letter does not resolve the complaint. It confirms the very issue underpinning the entire case. The investigation was designed to protect the narrative written by the officers, not the truth recorded by the camera. It was created to reaffirm the City’s version, not to evaluate the evidence. It was a mechanism for preserving a story that had already begun to spread into emails, agencies, and professional settings far outside the police department.

The OPS report stands today not as an exoneration but as proof of how the City handled the entire matter. It shows how quickly false claims became official records. It shows how internal processes were used to insulate officers instead of correcting misconduct. And it shows why the truth did not surface inside the department. It had to be forced into the open in federal court.

THE RETALIATION MOVED BEYOND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT

How a false narrative moved from the police division to the administrative chain and why the City repeated a policy that did not exist on the day of the incident.

Once Chief McCann sent his email to Juvenile Court Administrator Tim Weitzel and the OPS report locked in the officers’ version of events, the retaliation did not remain inside the police department. It expanded into the rest of city leadership, beginning with the office that controlled the building itself.

During the June 1 incident, the Safety-Service Director was Sanford Washington, not Rey Carrion. Washington had full administrative authority over City Hall security. He was the official responsible for building access, staffing of the checkpoint, and oversight of the auxiliary personnel stationed at the lobby entrance. Four days after the incident, Washington issued the first security memo that attempted to codify new rules for entering City Hall. The memo was dated June 5. It appeared only after the confrontation and described requirements that were not in place on June 1.

Washington’s memo stated that visitors must have appointments, that identity checks were mandatory, and that walk-in access should be treated as exceptional. These rules did not exist when the incident occurred. They were not posted. They were not communicated. They were not part of any written structure until after the fact. The timing revealed their purpose. The City needed to create the appearance that the officers had followed established procedures on June 1, so it created the procedures after the fact.

The next phase came months later when Washington departed and his successor, Rey Carrion, repeated and circulated similar rules. Carrion’s communications referenced the same access restrictions and procedural language that first appeared in Washington’s June 5 memo. Carrion reiterated those expectations in internal meetings and administrative exchanges, creating the impression that the building had long operated under those guidelines. This strategy allowed the City to maintain the fiction that the June 1 encounter reflected standard practice rather than unilateral misconduct by the officers involved.

The Law Department was the next link in the chain. Assistant Law Director Joseph LaVeck played an active role in shaping the narrative through the city’s responses to records requests and internal correspondence. Routine interactions were rerouted through his office instead of being handled by the staff who normally addressed them. Communications that once took a day took weeks. Redactions that had no legal basis were justified through his explanations. The Law Department became the administrative gatekeeper for the information that undermined the officers’ version of events.

The Mayor’s office completed the chain. When I confronted Mayor Jack Bradley at a Block Watch meeting and asked why a lieutenant told me I had been trespassed from City Hall, Bradley stated that the City “must have mistaken you for someone else.” That admission shows that the Mayor was aware of the situation and aware that the officers’ justification rested on false assumptions. The statement also confirms the absence of any legitimate trespass order. Yet the city’s internal narrative continued long after that acknowledgment.

This administrative pattern matters because it establishes how retaliatory misinformation became institutional. A false narrative created in a lobby on June 1 moved to a court administrator within hours. It entered the Law Department through redactions, routing decisions, and withheld records. It became formalized through a memo issued by Safety-Service Director Washington. It was later revived and echoed by Carrion. It remained intact inside the Mayor’s office even after Bradley acknowledged the mistake.

Retaliation does not require a conspiracy. Courts look for a sequence of actions by government actors that are connected by motive, timing, and effect. The City’s conduct fits that framework. Every administrative action came after my protected speech about the police department’s unlawful censorship of its Facebook page. Every part of the chain served to reinforce the officers’ false reports rather than correct them. Every official who touched the issue worked in a way that insulated the police version and marginalized the truth.

The story now shifts to the legal consequences. The City’s coordinated conduct crossed every threshold that triggers municipal liability. The lawsuit did not create this problem. The lawsuit exposed it.

HOW THE CITY TURNED A FALSE REPORT INTO FEDERAL LIABILITY

The legal standards that Lorain crossed and why Knapp v. City of Lorain now sits in federal court.

When the retaliation spread across departments, the City moved from internal mismanagement into full constitutional liability. The United States Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit have clear standards for when a municipality becomes responsible for the actions of its officials. Under those standards, the City of Lorain did not just cross the line. The City erased it.

The framework begins with Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Monell established that a city can be sued when a constitutional violation is the result of a policy, a practice, or a custom of the government. The June 1 incident did not occur in a vacuum. The retaliation that followed did not appear by accident. The coordination across administrative offices shows an unofficial custom of distortion and concealment that operated with the force of law. When Safety-Service Director Washington issued the June 5 memo to retroactively justify conduct that had already occurred, that single act became a policy within the meaning of Monell. When Carrion circulated the same language months later, it became a repeated practice. When OPS adopted the false version of events and defended it in writing, it became a custom.

The Sixth Circuit has repeatedly held that even informal policies can trigger municipal liability when they guide decision making. In Leach v. Shelby County Sheriff, 891 F.2d 1241 (6th Cir. 1989), the court found that repeated misconduct by officers, combined with administrative approval, created a custom that made the county liable. Lorain followed an almost identical pattern. The officers created a false narrative. The police chief endorsed it. The Safety-Service Director created policy around it. The Law Department defended it. Other officials repeated it. That is what Monell calls a custom with the force of law.

The individual defendants were added for a different legal reason. Under 42 U.S.C. 1983, government officials can be sued in their personal capacity when they violate clearly established constitutional rights. For First Amendment retaliation claims, the courts use a three-part test: the speech must be protected, the government must take an adverse action that would deter an ordinary person, and the action must be motivated by the protected speech. All three elements are present here.

The protected speech began with my criticism of the Lorain Police Department for shutting down public comments on its Facebook page. Courts have repeatedly held that such criticism is core political speech. In Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715 (2019), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that retaliatory government conduct that follows protected speech is actionable when the government uses its power to punish the speaker. The City did exactly that. I challenged the department’s censorship. Days later, I was treated as if I were a threat every time I walked into City Hall. The officers’ reports went into systems that reached Weitzel, who repeated and weaponized them. The Law Department later used that misinformation to undermine my records requests. Washington wrote policy to match the narrative. Carrion revived it. The retaliation did not fade. It amplified.

The second legal consequence arises from fabricated evidence, which courts treat as an independent constitutional violation. The Sixth Circuit has held in Gregory v. City of Louisville, 444 F.3d 725 (6th Cir. 2006) that a government official violates the Constitution when he knowingly creates false evidence or submits statements inconsistent with the facts. Lieutenant Swanger’s Garrity interview includes multiple false statements. He claimed I had been to City Hall “numerous times.” Video shows I had not. He claimed I invaded the auxiliary officer’s space. Video shows the auxiliary officer stepping toward me. He claimed he barely touched me. Video shows he physically spun me and shoved me toward the door. Auxiliary Officer Palmer’s written statement mirrors those same falsehoods. In the eyes of the courts, that is not a misunderstanding. That is fabrication.

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Lewis v. City of West Palm Beach, 561 F.3d 1288 (11th Cir. 2009) explains that when fabricated evidence is used to justify removal, denial of access, or administrative targeting, the harm begins the moment the fabrication is created. It does not require a criminal prosecution. Lorain used the false narrative to justify removing me from a public building, excluding me from access, and treating me as a security threat. The fabrication had immediate effect.

The third legal layer is the denial of access to public records. Ohio law is clear. Under R.C. 149.43(B)(1), records must be provided promptly and at reasonable cost. The Attorney General’s guidance states that agencies cannot discriminate based on the identity of the requester. The City violated all those requirements. Redactions were invented. Fees were inflated. Delays were intentional. Everything was routed through the Law Department for strategic purposes. Once that occurred, the records dispute became evidence of continuing retaliation after protected speech, which is prohibited under R.C. 2921.45, the state civil rights statute that makes it a criminal offense for a government official to knowingly deprive someone of constitutional rights.

Taken together, these actions created exactly the kind of fact pattern federal courts recognize as systemic retaliation. Timing, motive, coordination, and harm all point in the same direction. Every time I exercised a right, a new government actor appeared. Every time I asked for transparency, the system tightened around the false narrative.

This legal framework explains why the lawsuit, Knapp v. City of Lorain, 1:25-cv-02213-DAR, names not only the City but the individuals who took part in the chain. False reports created by officers. Emails circulated by Chief McCann. Administrative decisions by Washington. Repetition of false policy by Carrion. Legal interference by LaVeck. Professional retaliation sparked by Weitzel. And a citywide insistence on protecting a story that collapsed the moment the video came into view.

This is what brought the case to federal court. Not one incident. Not one person. It was a system acting as one mechanism to punish a citizen for protected speech.

This is what brought the case to federal court. Not one incident. Not one person. It was a system acting as one mechanism to punish a citizen for protected speech.

What Lorain Tried to Hide Is Now Before a Federal Judge

Part One ends where the truth finally overtook the fiction. The City of Lorain built a narrative on the back of a false police report, repeated it across departments, reinforced it with policy created after the fact, and defended it through selective records practices and shifting legal justifications. That approach can work in a closed administrative system where evidence is hidden and the public is kept at a distance. It cannot survive in federal court where the standards are higher, the scrutiny is real, and fabricated narratives collapse under oath. This case never began as a lawsuit. It began as a citizen asking a question about unconstitutional censorship and ended only after the City responded with force, misinformation, suppression, and institutional retaliation. The next chapter turns to the evidence they tried to bury, the videos they refused to release, the contradictions inside their own Garrity statements, and the administrative paper trail that exposes how far the City went to protect a lie.

In the Next Article:

The City worked hard to control the story, but the evidence does not lie. In Part Two, the doors finally swing open. The unreleased lobby video, the reprimand of the auxiliary officer for the credit card knife, the contradictions buried inside Garrity interviews, and the emails the City hoped would stay hidden will be laid out in full. What Lorain called “policy” will be compared to what the footage actually recorded. And the public will see how every version of the City’s account collapses the moment the record replaces the rhetoric.

Legal Disclaimer

This article is based on documented records, publicly obtained materials, sworn statements, and legally protected opinion on matters of significant public concern. Nothing in this publication constitutes legal advice. Readers facing similar issues should consult with a licensed attorney. All individuals named are presumed innocent of any wrongdoing unless proven otherwise in a court of law. Any errors will be promptly corrected upon verified request.

Author Information

By Aaron Christopher Knapp, LSW, BSSW
Investigative writer, public records advocate, and founder of Lorain Politics Unplugged.
Substack: @LorainPolitics
AaronKnappUnplugged.com
For tips, documents, or story leads: a4xbeaverman@yahoo.com

About The Author