Cuyahoga County Sheriff Harold Pretel has changed his stance and is now allowing an outside agency to investigate the death of Tasha Grant, a double amputee, who died after being restrained at MetroHealth Medical Center in May.
Trumbull County sheriff’s detectives will now investigate Grant’s death and the actions of a sheriff’s deputy and Metro police officers who restrained her, a Cuyahoga County spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.
It is unclear when or why Pretel shifted his stance after months of resistance.
But the move comes just weeks after The Marshall Project – Cleveland reported that Grant’s relatives and Cleveland-area advocacy groups were demanding sheriff’s officials step aside for an independent probe.
Stanley Jackson, the attorney representing Grant’s family, said they preferred the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation take over the case. But a BCI spokesperson said the agency was not asked to review Grant’s death.
“This family and the community deserve better,” Jackson told The Marshall Project – Cleveland. “There’s no consistency, and there’s no real accountability, and this is just another example of that.”
Grant, 39, died in custody after she was transferred from the county jail to the hospital after complaining of chest pains. Three days later, an altercation led hospital police officers, a sheriff’s deputy and hospital staff to restrain Grant by handcuffing her to a bed.
Body camera footage revealed that Grant yelled 23 times that she could not breathe in the minutes before dying. Her death was later ruled a homicide.
Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne did not reply to a request to explain why Pretel, whom he oversees, decided to pass the case.
Calls for an independent investigation started months ago after the deaths of Tamya Westmoreland and Sharday Elder, both bystanders killed this year in separate high-speed chases led by the sheriff’s problematic Downtown Safety Patrol [recently renamed the Community Support Unit].
Weeks ago, Pretel rebuffed the calls for an outside probe. At the time, a county spokesperson said the sheriff will continue the department’s practice of investigating all deaths that involve deputies.
It is unclear if the deaths of Westmoreland and Elder will be investigated by Trumbull detectives. Trumbull sheriff’s officials did not respond to messages seeking comment.
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project – Cleveland, a nonprofit news team covering Ohio’s criminal justice systems.
Councilmember Mike Gallagher, who chairs the public safety committee, said he privately expressed concern to the sheriff’s staff that major cases, which often result in six-figure financial settlements, should be investigated independently.
Nearly all council members have otherwise remained silent on the deaths of the three county residents.
“I think we all owe that to the taxpayers and the people that are considered right now victims of actions related to the sheriff,” Gallagher told The Marshall Project – Cleveland on Thursday.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley has already stepped aside and appointed a special prosecutor to review potential criminal charges in Grant’s death.
Across Ohio in recent years, the state BCI has been the go-to agency for independent investigations into deaths involving law enforcement.
Twenty-four county sheriffs and 49 police chiefs, including those from Cleveland Heights, Garfield Heights, North Olmsted, North Ridgeville, Parma and Shaker Heights, have turned over in-custody homicide cases to the agency since 2020, according to a Marshall Project – Cleveland review of 120 fatal force investigations.