He Campaigned for the East Cleveland Mayor's Opponent. Then Police Came for His Truck.

Walking through East Cleveland, Ohio, feels a touch like you've wandered onto the set of a postapocalyptic film noir. Grand, gilded homes announce themselves on neighborhood streets, some crowned with turrets, many with windows punched out like missing teeth. Often, no one is home, because no one lives there. It is safer than 1 percent of U.S. cities.

So why did local law enforcement pour considerable time and resources into pursuing a man for a sound truck?

That question is not really a legal one, at least not in the most technical sense. But it is the driving force behind a thorny case a federal court recently resuscitated: Fambrough v. City of East Cleveland, a saga concerning a man whose vehicle became an obsessive target of the East Cleveland Police Department (ECPD) after he used it to campaign for a mayoral challenger.

Some of the facts are in dispute. But the basic gist is as follows: William Fambrough, long a politically engaged East Clevelander, campaigned for Juanita Gowdy—a challenger to then-Mayor Brandon King—by broadcasting messages around the city with his sound truck. That ultimately came to an end after law enforcement impounded the car, cited him for parking and noise violations, and prosecuted him for the latter.

Fambrough sued, alleging the complex legal odyssey set into motion over his step van amounted to First Amendment retaliation, an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and a violation of the 14th Amendment's proscription against selective enforcement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit rejected some of those claims. But it resurrected claims against King and his chief of staff, Michael Smedley—depriving them of qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that inoculates state and local government officials from facing lawsuits if their alleged misconduct was not "clearly established" as illegal in prior case law. It also revived Fambrough's retaliation claim against the city.

As the 6th Circuit summarizes: King "says he received a phone call from a resident who complained about Fambrough's sound truck and someone else's box truck being parked in a residential area," so he told someone to take care of it. Scott Gardner, then the city's chief of police, "was concerned about selectively enforcing" the parking ordinance—which prohibits parking a truck in front of residential property, except for loading or unloading—because it is indeed almost never enforced. This was the beginning of a long pursuit, which ultimately saw a swarm of officers dispatched to Fambrough's house in August 2021 to confiscate the vehicle, allegedly resulting in $6,000 in damage. Fambrough also had to pay $528 in fees to get the damaged truck back.

"All the attention City officials gave Fambrough struck Gardner as unusual," the 6th Circuit notes. "The mayor's office wasn't this attentive even in homicide cases. And considering that the City had around only 50 police officers at the time and had 'serious crime problems,' Gardner thought it was odd to devote this much attention to permitting and parking issues." Based on available data, East Cleveland's violent crime rate is 1,409 per 100,000 residents, about four times higher than the national average.

Yet Gardner ultimately got on board. Smedley phoned him on August 9 "extremely upset," according to Gardner, and told the police chief he was "incompetent" for failing to "take care of" Fambrough's sound truck. Smedley wanted the "utmost enforcement as possible." So Gardner sent an email. "Please, find this vehicle and tow it," he wrote to all of ECPD. "Cite the operator with disturbing the peace and loud music. Please contact me as soon as this is complete to claim a surprise." A surprise!

Police succeeded. "On its face, the email told officers to tow Fambrough's truck regardless of whether it was parked illegally," writes the 6th Circuit. "And the Noise Ordinance authorizes seizure only of 'the sound device used,' and only upon conviction. So Gardner's instruction to tow the truck wasn't authorized by municipal law." The court still held that the seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment. It also gave Gardner qualified immunity, ruling it is not clearly established that someone who acts as a conduit for someone else's alleged retaliation—which here came from the mayor's office—is a "responsible party."

Heather McCollough, the city's assistant law director, subsequently prosecuted Fambrough for allegedly violating the noise ordinance. According to a sworn declaration from Fambrough's attorney, McCollough outlined some of Fambrough's offenses on a call: that he "made complaints about the police department" and filed "public records requests," among other issues. Notably, it is legal to do those things. McCollough was typically willing to resolve minor noise complaints, she added, but not so much in this case, because Fambrough needed to "stand down." (He ultimately pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, a reduced charge.)

"Only after [Fambrough] began supporting Gowdy's election was the weight of the law thrown against him," the 6th Circuit writes in its analysis of potential municipal wrongdoing. "And the City's police officers didn't uncover Fambrough's violations of their own accord. Instead, City decisionmakers sent them to Fambrough's home each time to enforce the Parking Ordinance. So the timing of the parking-related enforcement actions supports an inference that Fambrough's political speech was the motivating factor—as does the fact that the City rarely enforced the Parking Ordinance against anyone else despite having plenty of opportunities to do so." Incredibly, a photo of another truck can be seen down the street on the same day law enforcement came to fetch Fambrough's vehicle. (The law also includes pickup trucks, so the city arguably has a lot of enforcement to do if it sincerely believes this law matters.)

King allegedly set the chain of events into motion while Smedley took the driver's seat. "Smedley's pattern of incessantly calling and berating Gardner," the 6th Circuit adds, "clashes with the idea that Smedley was chiefly concerned with minor permitting, noise, or parking issues." After all, if that were true, why would the problem appear to begin and end with one person?

Over five years have passed since the ordeal. Although Fambrough is now potentially closer to getting in front of a jury, he has yet to actually state his case, still burdened by the onerous process government actors invoke to kill such suits before the community can assess the merits. King, meanwhile, won that election. He left office in May 2025, however, after he was found guilty of one count of theft in office, four counts of having an unlawful interest in a public contract, three counts of representation by public official or employee, one count of filing a false disclosure statement, and one count of soliciting improper compensation.

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