By Cid Standifer | The Marshall Project – Cleveland

This story is a joint project of the nonprofit The Marshall Project – Cleveland and Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join the free mailing lists for Eye on Ohio or The Marshall Project, as this helps provide more public service reporting.

An ambulance was already outside the East Side Cleveland home, its lights flashing, when the police officer arrived one evening in December 2020. According to body camera footage from the incident, the aunt of an 8-year-old with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder said the boy was “acting crazy.” At one point, she said he had climbed out a window onto the house’s roof.