Enabling McCann's Misconduct: A Leadership Crisis Unchecked
The more I examined the issues surrounding Councilman Baez, the clearer it became that the city council's inaction contributed directly to an even larger and more troubling issue: the misconduct of Lorain Police Chief James McCann. By refusing to address ethical concerns involving Baez, city leadership inadvertently set a dangerous precedent—one that allowed McCann's questionable behavior to flourish unchecked.
April 2025 brought explicit revelations of Chief McCann's abusive conduct towards subordinates, including allegations of verbal abuse, discriminatory remarks, and retaliatory tactics. These reports, supported by multiple firsthand accounts, were too severe to ignore. Despite being repeatedly notified, city officials, including Mayor Jack Bradley and Law Director Patrick Riley, chose silence or passive responses rather than proactive investigation.
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“I want a report against Morrow as well as McCann and copies of any communications McCann has had with Hilton in regards to Knapp on any phone, computer, or device.” — Aaron Knapp, demanding transparency in April 2025.
The city's ongoing refusal to confront McCann's misconduct exposed it to significant legal and financial risks. Potential lawsuits resulting from unaddressed harassment, retaliation, and discrimination claims threatened to drain resources from city coffers—yet leaders remained immobile. Lorain officials, it appeared, prioritized protecting political allies over safeguarding public trust and fiscal responsibility.
Council members who should have been watchdogs became passive observers, silently enabling McCann’s troubling behavior. Every complaint dismissed or ignored by city leadership solidified a culture of impunity within Lorain’s government—a culture that compromised the city's ethical foundations and endangered the well-being of public employees and residents alike.
avoidance and complicity Government
Patterns of Avoidance and Complicity
The silence from Lorain’s officials created not merely frustration but suspicion of deliberate complicity. My attempts to request transparency—especially communications between McCann and involved parties like Tia Hilton—were consistently ignored. This inaction suggested that city leaders either feared confronting McCann or were indifferent to the ethical decay occurring under their watch.
Mayor Bradley, despite offering occasional replies, consistently deferred responsibility, referring matters vaguely to external authorities like the Ohio Ethics Commission. While seeking external advice can be valuable, his consistent lack of direct leadership on internal investigations underscored an unwillingness or inability to confront Lorain’s growing ethical crisis.
“Please follow the law and don’t allow an unqualified idiot like Rey Carrion to be the decision maker on this matter.” — Aaron Knapp, highlighting the city’s insufficient responses.
This persistent pattern of avoidance wasn't accidental—it was a deliberate strategy. Lorain leadership's refusal to act served as tacit approval of McCann's behavior, allowing toxic practices to metastasize unchecked. Councilman Baez’s unresolved conflicts and McCann’s unchallenged misconduct represented a dual breakdown in the accountability structure, further cementing Lorain's institutional dysfunction.
A Toxic Work Environment Emerges
The leadership vacuum fostered by city council and mayoral inaction allowed Chief McCann to reinforce a toxic and retaliatory departmental culture. Reports surfaced detailing intimidation tactics and discriminatory practices that permeated daily operations within Lorain’s police force. These were not mere personnel issues—they were symptomatic of broader governance failures.
Officers facing harassment or witnessing misconduct learned quickly that speaking out would yield no results—only reprisal. Fear replaced accountability, silence replaced transparency, and ethical breaches became normalized. Such an environment eroded morale, undermined professional standards, and fundamentally betrayed the trust of the officers and the community they served.
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Public Trust Eroded: A Community Betrayed
The cumulative effect of Lorain’s persistent inaction on ethical violations severely eroded public trust. Residents increasingly questioned the integrity of their police department and city government. How could citizens trust a system that repeatedly ignored legitimate grievances and enabled misconduct at the highest levels?
As the city leaders chose silence and denial, the community's sense of security and fairness suffered dramatically. Transparency, the cornerstone of public trust, vanished beneath bureaucratic deflection and dismissal. Every unanswered email, every uninvestigated complaint, served only to widen the gap between citizens and their elected representatives.
“I have so much evidence on all of you.” — Aaron Knapp, signaling mounting frustration with unaddressed corruption.
Public meetings and communications that should have reassured constituents instead amplified feelings of neglect and betrayal. By consistently ignoring critical issues, Lorain's leadership signaled clearly: protecting internal power dynamics mattered more than upholding public accountability or addressing genuine concerns.
The Ongoing Consequences of Failed Accountability
The consequences of Lorain's systemic inaction have already left deep scars. Chief McCann’s unchecked authority not only harmed internal department morale but damaged external community relationships irreparably. The culture of impunity fostered within the city’s government has become entrenched, normalizing ethical violations and sidelining whistleblower voices.
Financial implications loom large. The city, already burdened by potential legal battles stemming from internal misconduct, faces mounting liabilities directly attributable to its leaders' refusal to act. Lorain taxpayers will ultimately bear the brunt of these avoidable costs, paying dearly for their government's ethical abdication.
Restoring Integrity: A Necessary Path Forward
To rebuild trust, Lorain must first acknowledge its failures openly. Transparent investigations into all misconduct allegations, clear and decisive actions against those found responsible, and genuine reforms must become immediate priorities. Only through substantive and visible accountability can Lorain begin to mend the deep wounds caused by years of inaction.
Reform starts at the top. Elected officials must confront ethical breaches directly, refusing to shield misconduct behind bureaucratic obfuscation. A renewed commitment to transparency, open communication, and genuine responsiveness to public concerns is not merely advisable—it is indispensable.
“You people are so screwed. This is the last straw.” — Aaron Knapp, reflecting community frustration and demands for genuine accountability.
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Conclusion: A Call to Duty and Accountability
Lorain now stands at a breaking point. Continued inaction, silence, and denial will not merely "deepen divides"—they will cement a culture of corruption that has already poisoned the public's trust. Every day of delay compounds the damage.
Yet, a genuine commitment to transparency, accountability, and reform still offers a narrow but critical path forward. But make no mistake: that path requires real courage—the courage to confront uncomfortable truths, expose failures, and dismantle the systems that have protected the powerful at the expense of the people.
The choice before Lorain’s leadership could not be clearer:
Will they finally honor their oaths and stand for integrity, justice, and transparency?
Or will they remain trapped in complicity, defending a broken system that has already betrayed too many?
The future of Lorain depends not on hollow speeches or empty promises, but on action—action driven by a fearless commitment to ethical governance and a refusal to tolerate further abuse of power.
The story of Lorain is still being written. Its final chapters will be shaped not by those who whisper excuses behind closed doors, but by those who are willing to stand up, speak truth to power, and demand a government worthy of its people.
This is not just an opportunity. This is a duty. And history will remember who rose to meet it—and who chose to look away.
A Lesson in Duty: "We Were Supposed to Fight for People Like Willie"
In the film A Few Good Men, after being acquitted of murder charges, Lance Corporal Dawson and Private First Class Downey face dishonorable discharge. Downey, bewildered, asks, “What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong!” Dawson answers with brutal clarity:
“Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.”
This moment cuts to the heart of duty—not to power, not to politics, but to protecting those who cannot protect themselves.
In Lorain, that sacred duty has been utterly abandoned. Not just by the government. Not just by the Lorain Police Department. But by every official, officer, and so-called “leader” who stood silent while injustice flourished under their watch.
For far too long, those entrusted with protecting the public have instead protected each other. The police turned a blind eye to misconduct that borders on criminality—and in some cases, crossed the line into internal blue-on-blue hate crimes. Officers who should have stood for justice allowed racial hostility and retaliation to fester unchecked within their own ranks.
The betrayal is staggering. It is not only a betrayal of their badges, but of the very public trust that gives them authority. They were supposed to fight for people like Officer Corey Middlebrooks. They were supposed to fight for equity, fairness, and justice.
Instead, they fought to preserve a broken system—one that punishes whistleblowers, protects abusers, and silences anyone who dares to call out corruption.
Lorain deserves better. The people of Lorain deserve better. The duty to protect the vulnerable was not a suggestion—it was an oath. And that oath has been shattered.
Middlebrooks and the Culture of Silence
Officer Corey Middlebrooks, a decorated veteran who earned the department’s Purple Heart after surviving a life-threatening injury in the line of duty, became a target the moment he dared to speak out. He exposed the racism, retaliation, and corruption rotting the Lorain Police Department (LPD) from the inside. For his courage, he was met not with respect, but with calculated silence. Instead of investigating the civil rights abuses Middlebrooks documented, Lorain’s leadership fired him—burying the truth alongside his career.
This wasn’t an accident. This was a modern-day lynching of reputation and livelihood—a 21st-century version of the same brutal tactics once used under Jim Crow to silence Black voices demanding justice. Just as redlining confined generations of Americans of color behind invisible walls of discrimination, Lorain’s city leadership has built their own walls, designed to protect privilege and punish anyone daring to challenge their stranglehold on power.
The firing of Safety Director Sanford, a person of color who advocated for equitable practices, only confirmed the pattern. If you advocate for the marginalized in Lorain, you are discarded. If you speak truth to power, you are erased. Lorain’s government is not failing by accident—it is enforcing a system where silence is rewarded, and courage is punished.
This isn’t just political cowardice. It is a systemic betrayal of the public trust. It is the continuation of an old and ugly tradition—one that stretches from the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan to the redlined maps of the 20th century, and now festers in the closed council chambers and police offices of Lorain.
Middlebrooks deserved a medal for his courage off the battlefield—not a pink slip. Sanford deserved support for building bridges between communities—not political exile. Every officer who witnessed racism, retaliation, or misconduct and said nothing bears a share of this disgrace. Every council member who sat in silence, every official who shrugged off whistleblower warnings, has become part of a long, shameful legacy of institutionalized oppression.
This is Lorain’s history being written right now. It is not the history of progress—it is the history of betrayal.
And unless good people inside and outside the system rise up and say "enough," it will only get worse.
A Shared Responsibility: Council, Police, and Officials
The responsibility for Lorain’s moral collapse does not rest solely with the Lorain Police Department. It extends to every elected official who sat silently while injustice festered. Members of the Lorain City Council, high-ranking city administrators, and other officials who were made aware of the discrimination, retaliation, and abuses—and who chose instead to do nothing—are complicit. Their willful silence, their cowardly deflections, and their failure to uphold their oaths of office have enabled an environment where corruption thrives and civil rights are treated as optional.
The Ohio Revised Code is crystal clear: public officials and law enforcement officers are not permitted to pick and choose when to uphold the law. They are mandated—not advised, not encouraged, mandated—to report misconduct, discrimination, retaliation, and abuse of authority. It is not a suggestion; it is the legal duty they swore to uphold when they took their offices.
Each time an officer looked the other way... each time a council member deleted an email rather than address a constituent’s concern... each time a city official decided it was "politically safer" to ignore allegations of racism, hate crimes, or civil rights violations within city ranks—they violated that oath. They chose comfort over conscience. Power over principle.
Their failures have not just undermined public trust—they have actively betrayed it. They have turned Lorain into a cautionary tale of what happens when those entrusted to protect the public instead protect their own careers, cronies, and corrupt institutions.
Justice demands more than hollow words during election season. Accountability demands more than photo ops and promises. Lorain’s leaders were entrusted with the public’s faith—and they squandered it through silence, inaction, and betrayal.
The Ohio Revised Code demands impartiality. The citizens demand justice. And history will demand answers.
The question is no longer whether Lorain’s leadership failed. It is now whether they possess the courage—or the shame—to repair the damage they have caused.
This Is a Call to Duty
To the officers of the Lorain Police Department:
Reflect deeply on your badge, your oath, and your humanity. You were not sworn in to protect political alliances, nor to shield wrongdoers because of the uniform they wear. You were sworn to protect all citizens—without fear, without favor, and without prejudice. If you have witnessed misconduct, discrimination, retaliation, or crimes within your department, you are not just permitted to report it—you are duty-bound to do so.
The so-called “blue wall of silence” is not a badge of honor. It is a betrayal of everything honorable policing stands for. Upholding it only perpetuates injustice, corrodes public trust, and ultimately destroys the very department you claim to defend. Loyalty is owed to the Constitution, not to corrupt commanders.
You are not spectators to injustice. You are sworn defenders against it.
To the members of the Lorain City Council and city officials:
Look long and hard in the mirror. Your inaction, your silence, your political calculations—they all have consequences. Real people have been hurt. Real trust has been broken. While you sat through meetings and exchanged sanitized emails, injustice metastasized within the very institutions you are sworn to oversee.
Your oath of office was not a ceremonial platitude. It was a solemn vow to act—especially when it is difficult. Especially when it is politically inconvenient. Especially when standing up risks your career. That is what public service demands.
Your time to make excuses is over. Either you confront the rot you helped enable, or you will forever be remembered as the leaders who chose complicity over courage.
To the community:
This is your city. These are your streets, your schools, your neighborhoods—and your government. Do not let silence and apathy be the final word. Demand transparency. Demand accountability. Demand better.
Support the few who have risked everything to speak out. Stand behind the officers who tell the truth. Vote out the politicians who dodge and deceive. Refuse to accept the gaslighting and the stonewalling as business as usual.
Lorain can be better. It must be better. But it will only happen if ordinary citizens refuse to remain silent—and if extraordinary pressure is placed on those in power to finally, belatedly, do what is right.
Justice is not a spectator sport. It demands participation.
And it demands it now.
Justice and Integrity Are Not Mere Ideals—They Are Responsibilities
The final scene in A Few Good Men reminds us that the greatest betrayal is not of rules or orders—but of our fundamental duty to protect those who depend on us.
In Lorain, that duty has been neglected for far too long.
Lorain’s leaders were supposed to fight for people like Corey Middlebrooks—a decorated veteran, a Purple Heart recipient, a man who stood against injustice even when it cost him everything.
They were supposed to fight for fairness, for transparency, and for the very principles they swore to uphold.
Instead, they fought to protect their power, their egos, and a broken system—a system that silences the brave, rewards the complicit, and punishes those who dare to demand better.
It is not too late to change course. But it will require courage—real courage—the kind that places duty above personal ambition, and truth above self-preservation.
It will require officers to step forward. It will require city officials to hold their colleagues accountable. It will require a community unwilling to be gaslighted, lied to, or ignored.
Lorain’s story is not over.
It is still being written—line by line, decision by decision, act of courage by act of courage.
Let it be a story of reform, of accountability, and of the restoration of public trust.
Let it be a story where justice, not power, finally wins.
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