Man blinded by bean bag during Cleveland racial protest sues

CLEVELAND (AP) — A man hit in the face with a bean bag that left him blind in one eye during a racial injustice protest in downtown Cleveland a year ago has sued the sheriff’s deputy who shot him.

Attorneys for John Sanders, 25, of Sandusky, filed the complaint in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Saturday, the day before the one-year anniversary of a Black Lives Matter protest organized in the wake of George Floyd’s slaying in Minneapolis.

Sanders along with friends and acquaintances had traveled to Cleveland to peacefully protest on May 30, 2020, the lawsuit said. Before joining the group to return home, Sanders crossed a street next to the Cuyahoga County Justice Center to snap photographs and was struck by a bean bag fired from behind a broken window as he began to walk away, the complaint said.

People rushed to Sanders’ aid and carried him out of harm’s way, Sanders told The Associated Press last year. He was taken to a hospital where he underwent unsuccessful surgery to repair the damage. His left eye was removed during a second surgery the next day. Additional surgery was needed to repair broken bones in his face and deal with a problematic skin graft.

Bruce Lourie is identified in the lawsuit and by a Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office report as the deputy who shot Sanders. The complaint names other county and sheriff’s office officials as defendants.

Lourie had received no training in use of non-lethal weapons before being handed the bean bag shotgun on May 30, 2020, a violation of departmental policy that requires such training, the lawsuit said.

The sheriff’s office placed Lourie on leave last June and asked the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to conduct a criminal probe of the deputy’s actions. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley asked Geauga County Prosecutor James Flaiz in January to oversee the investigation, which Flaiz said last week was ongoing.