CLEVELAND — A Canton police officer who was fired last year for siccing his K-9 on a man as a crowd of residents raised objections to a traffic stop was ordered to be reinstated by an arbitrator, city records show.
Arbitrator Jenifer Flesher last week issued a ruling in favor of the officer, Nicholas Casto, following a two-day arbitration hearing held in February.
Casto was terminated in June 2024 for multiple alleged violations of department policy related to the “deployment” of his K-9 on Kieven Conver, whom police accused of taunting Casto’s K-9 and attempting to rile up the “aggressive and disorderly” crowd.
In the 28-page decision, Flesher noted Casto’s “stellar record as a police officer,” with no prior discipline history aside from a two-day suspension for an incident in April 2024, and pointed to what she saw as major procedural flaws in the Canton Police Department’s investigation. She suggested Casto was terminated primarily to allay community outrage in response to the incident.
“It appears to this arbitrator as if this investigation was influenced at best, and shaped at worst, from the onset, to appease the community rather than to determine if any actual wrongdoing had occurred,” Flesher wrote. “The Mayor, Safety Director, Chief and on down, were all well aware of the community backlash over this incident.”
Flesher ordered Casto to be returned to work no later than 45 days from the Sept. 2 ruling, and receive backpay and restored benefits from the period he was terminated. She also ordered all record of his firing be removed from his personnel file, and that the CPD must not mention the K-9 incident to any prospective employers should Casto decide to leave the department.
“It is the opinion of this Arbitrator that [Casto’s] actions on May 30, 2024, fell within the parameters of Departmental policy, and that he reasonably believed that the use of the K9 was necessary for the safety of officers and to effectuate the arrest of Conver.”
In a statement Tuesday evening, Canton Mayor William V. Sherer II said the city stood by its decision to fire Casto and would file a court action challenging the arbitrator’s ruling.
“As this is now a pending legal matter, this will be the City’s only statement at this time,” Sherer said.
The city’s decision to fire Casto was announced via the release of a letter from Canton’s director of public safety, Andrea Perry, on June 28, 2024. In the letter, Perry laid out Casto’s alleged policy violations as follows:
The K-9 incident drew swift outcry from community members after video from the arrest circulated on social media. The incident also came just over a month after the death of Frank E. Tyson in Canton police custody, which led to similar outrage and the eventual indictment of the officers involved.
Attorney Bobby DiCello of DiCello Levitt represented both Convers and Tyson’s family. After Casto was initially placed on leave, DiCello decried the “fourth major incident in only two years involving excessive force unleashed by the Canton police department,” saying residents were forced to live in a “city under siege by the police.”
“We ask Governor Mike DeWine, State Senators, and the Department of Justice to immediately step up and start an investigation into systemic, racially motivated violence and gang-style culture prevalent in the Canton Police Department,” DiCello said in a statement at the time.
The crowd had gathered while officers arrested a pair of teenagers after a gun was found in their car during the traffic stop on May 30, 2024.
The arbiter wrote that Conver “moved down the hill ranting and flailing his arms after [Casto] was present” and continued attempting to disrupt the officers’ actions even after Casto ordered him multiple times to stop. The arbiter cited exhibits from the hearing that claimed Conver continued to resist arrest as three officers dogpiled on top of him, trying to arrest him.
It was then that Casto and the K-9 joined the fracas and — after the officers were off of Conver — released the K-9 and directed the dog to bite him.
The police department, in its reasoning for firing Casto, also alleged the officer included false information in his narrative report on the incident.
Conver testified that he was not tensing or pulling away from officers during the encounter, and that he had blacked out when he was pinned down by the officers. The arbiter, however, found Conver’s statements inaccurate and said he “did not present as a credible witness.”
Flesher took issue with the Canton Police Department’s claim that Casto “placed” a bite on Conver, noting that a placed bite is a technical term that suggests the K-9 is being directed by placing both hands on its collar.
“A frame by frame review of the … [body worn camera] footage establishes that [Casto] was moving toward Conver with his right hand open next to the K9’s neck, and was holding a loose lead in his left hand,” Flesher wrote in the ruling.
The arbiter opined that Casto’s open hand suggested an effort to direct the dog away from the crowd and the other officers and toward Conver.
“It appears to this arbitrator as if Conver was in fact clearly the culprit here,” Flesher wrote. “Conver purposefully incited the crowd, and from the moment the K9 appeared on the scene, his disruption and provocation escalated. He purposefully taunted the K9 to the point of frenzy, and he refused to retreat to the residence to avoid arrest when told multiple times to do so.”
Flesher said evidence and testimony suggests Casto’s actions expedited the arrest and allowed Conver to be removed “before things got worse.”
As for the city’s claim that Casto was not truthful in his recounting of the incident, Flesher again disagreed.
“If the Employer (police department) believed that [Casto’s] judgement was misplaced, this arbitrator believes that it was neither intentional or negligent, nor did his perceptions rise to the level of untruthfulness,” she wrote.
Flesher determined the Canton Police Department did not have “just cause” to fire the officer.
“There is not any clear and convincing evidence here, the standard that is often used in termination cases and is being used here,” Flesher asserted. “For that matter there is not even a preponderance of evidence that would raise the actions of [Casto] to the level of termination.
In the report, the arbiter unleashes several fiery rebukes of the police department, directed particularly at actions and statements by Chief John Gabbard, Training Officer Lt. Steven Swank and Lt. Steven Shackle from the department’s Office of Professional Standards.
Flesher accused the department of brazenly violating the collective bargaining agreement with the police union, littering the investigation with inconsistencies in a rushed effort to condemn Casto due to “pressure from the community and social media,” and terminating the officer without interviewing him.
“This arbitrator has never in fifty years, seen interviews conducted after charges have been determined and discipline has been recommended and/or levied,” Flesher wrote. She went a step further, theorizing that the city did not interview Casto because its decision in his case “had already been made.”
Elsewhere in the report, Flesher says the department’s interpretation of one of Casto’s comments heard on the bodycam video was “inane,” and that the its actions “shocks one’s senses.”
