A federal court has revived William Fambrough’s lawsuit, which charges city officials—including then-Mayor Brandon King—with retaliating against him for his speech.
Walking through East Cleveland, Ohio, feels a bit like wandering onto the set of a postapocalyptic film noir. Lavish, gilded houses rise along the blocks, some topped with turrets, many with windows punched out as if missing teeth. Often, the places appear vacant, with no one living inside. The city’s landscape seems safer than 99 percent of American municipalities. So why did local law enforcement devote so much time and effort to pursuing a man over a sound truck? That question is not purely legal in the narrow sense, but it underpins a difficult case a federal appeals court recently revived: Fambrough v. City of East Cleveland. The dispute concerns a resident who became a target of the East Cleveland Police Department (ECPD) after using his vehicle to campaign for a mayoral challenger. Some details remain contested. Yet the core story is this: William Fambrough, a longtime politically engaged East Clevelander, used his sound truck to broadcast messages around town in support of Juanita Gowdy, who challenged then-Mayor Brandon King. The campaign ended when law enforcement impounded the truck, cited him for parking and for loud music, and prosecuted him for the latter offense. Fambrough filed suit, contending that the complicated legal odyssey surrounding his step van constituted First Amendment retaliation, an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition on selective enforcement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected some of those claims but revived others: claims against King and his chief of staff, Michael Smedley, stripping them of qualified immunity—the protective shield that protects government officials from liability unless their conduct is clearly established as unlawful by prior precedent. The court also revived Fambrough’s retaliation claim against the city itself. As the Sixth Circuit recounts: 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 attend to it. Scott Gardner, who was then the city’s chief of police, “was concerned about selectively enforcing” the city’s parking ordinance—which prohibits parking a truck in front of a residential property except for loading or unloading—because the rule is almost never enforced. This marked the start of a lengthy pursuit that culminated in a swarm of officers descending on Fambrough’s home in August 2021 to seize the vehicle, an operation that allegedly caused about $6,000 in damage. Fambrough also paid $528 in fees to retrieve the damaged truck. “All the attention City officials gave Fambrough struck Gardner as unusual,” the Sixth Circuit observed. “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 the available data, East Cleveland’s violent crime rate stood at 1,409 per 100,000 residents—roughly four times the national average. Yet Gardner ultimately joined the effort. 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 demanded “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, indeed! The police succeeded. “On its face, the email told officers to tow Fambrough’s truck regardless of whether it was parked illegally,” explains the Sixth 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 concluded that the seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment. It also granted Gardner qualified immunity, ruling that it is not clearly established that someone who acts as a conduit for someone else’s alleged retaliation—here emanating from the mayor’s office—constitutes a “responsible party.” Heather McCollough, the city’s assistant law director, later prosecuted Fambrough for allegedly violating the noise ordinance. A sworn declaration from Fambrough’s attorney recounts that McCollough described some of Fambrough’s actions on a call: that he “made complaints about the police department” and submitted “public records requests,” among other things. Notably, such conduct is legal. McCollough was often willing to resolve minor noise complaints, she reportedly added, but not in this instance because Fambrough needed to “stand down.” (He eventually pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, a reduced charge.) The Institute for Justice notes that “Only after [Fambrough] began supporting Gowdy’s election was the weight of the law thrown against him,” the Sixth Circuit writes in its assessment of possible 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.” Remarkably, a photograph of another truck was visible down the street on the same day law enforcement came to seize Fambrough’s vehicle. (The law also covers pickup trucks, so one could argue that the city has a lot of enforcement to do if it truly regards this ordinance as important.) King allegedly triggered the sequence of events, with Smedley assuming a leadership role. “Smedley’s pattern of incessantly calling and berating Gardner,” the Sixth Circuit adds, “clashes with the idea that Smedley was chiefly concerned with minor permitting, noise, or parking issues.” After all, if that were the case, why would the problem appear to originate with one person and conclude in the same way? More than five years have elapsed since the ordeal. While Fambrough now appears closer to presenting his case to a jury, he has yet to actually state his claims, still hampered by the procedural hurdles the government actors employ to preempt such suits before the community can weigh their merits. King, for his part, won the election but left office in May 2025 after being 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 a public official or employee, one count of filing a false disclosure statement, and one count of soliciting improper compensation.
