A Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputy involved in separate shootings of two teenagers while assigned to a controversial downtown patrol unit was once deemed unfit by a suburban police force, an investigation by The Marshall Project – Cleveland and News 5 Cleveland has found.
During a nine-month stint with the Mentor Police Department, personnel records show Isen Vajusi failed his field training, lacked confidence, had “difficulty in stressful situations,” and “hesitates because he is afraid of making a mistake.”
Supervisors found Vajusi’s performance so poor that he needed to be terminated. He resigned Oct. 15, 2021, Mentor police records show.
After a year on the East Cleveland police force, Vajusi joined the Sheriff’s Department in June 2023. Within weeks, he was elevated to Sheriff Harold Pretel’s fledgling downtown safety patrol to target crime hotspots.
Then came the shootings involving Vajusi, along with an unrelated deadly pursuit.
Despite the gunfire and growing concerns over potential liability and costs, Cuyahoga County Council members backed down from threats of suspending the patrol.
Efforts to reach Vajusi for comment were unsuccessful. A county spokesperson declined to make him available.
A News 5 Cleveland and Marshall Project – Cleveland investigation found a Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputy who opened fire on teenage suspects twice in seven months was once deemed unfit by a suburban police force.
The two shootings by Vajusi — in October 2024 and May — are strikingly similar. In each instance, Vajusi opened fire within seconds of exiting his cruiser. He can be heard repeatedly claiming the teens were armed, but neither was.
Two police experts who reviewed the bodycam videos and Vajusi’s personnel files said there are numerous red flags necessitating scrutiny of the deputy. Statistics show most officers rarely fire their weapons during their career.
“This guy is not wired to be a cop,” said Jeff Wenninger, the founder and CEO of Ohio-based Law Enforcement Consultants LLC. “He was so scrutinized for not being assertive and taking control of situations. The pendulum just swung way too far in the correction of that. He is just over the top.”
Wenninger retired as a lieutenant after over 30 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, supervising over 700 critical use-of-force investigations.
Pretel would not say if Sheriff’s Department officials reviewed Vajusi’s personnel files from Mentor or East Cleveland. His Cuyahoga County personnel file contained none of the documents.
“Right now, I don’t have all those details,” Pretel said. “I’m not going to get into that discussion right now.”
The news outlets asked the county for any background investigations conducted on the unit’s deputies, but none has been provided.
Nine pages of Mentor Police Department records outline Vajusi’s poor performance:
He graduated from John Carroll University and said he pursued a police job after not being accepted to medical school. He then took police exams across Northeast Ohio and the Cleveland Division of Police hired him, but he resigned after one week, in December 2020.
Vajusi later graduated from the Cuyahoga Community College police academy in June 2021. While there, he was “horse-playing” and slammed another cadet into a training car, denting the door. Vajusi delayed reporting the incident and apologized, calling it “not a true testament of my character.”
Wenninger, the police expert, disagrees, saying Vajusi’s delay depicts a character flaw. The integrity issue should have brought a swift termination, he said.
“We call that lying and denying it,” he said. “What was he contemplating during the time that this occurred? You have to have zero tolerance for anything that would be indicative of being dishonest in any way.”
After graduating, Vajusi began field training in Mentor in July 2021. Problems developed immediately. He flunked the first training phase after the police department found that he created unsafe situations for citizens and fellow officers.
He did not perform “at an acceptable level on a consistent basis, even after being provided with remedial training.”
“Vajusi would have difficulty in stressful situations,” Sgt. Michael Kloski wrote in a memo. He “hesitates because he is afraid of making a mistake.”
After four months, supervisors had seen enough of the rookie cop. A captain wrote: “Patrolman Vajusi is not performing at an acceptable level. Failure to act is not an area where additional training can be provided.”
East Cleveland police personnel records mention Vajusi’s training failures in a five-paragraph memo prepared in early 2022.
Still, “I found nothing that would prohibit him from employment with the East Cleveland Police Department,” Detective Michael Cardilli wrote in a memo.
It is unclear why Vajusi left East Cleveland for the Sheriff’s Department. But controversy followed.
Last month, Cuyahoga deputies initiated a traffic stop. The vehicle fled. After it crashed at East 70th St. and Cedar Ave. in Cleveland, the driver sprinted away with a suspected firearm, a county spokeswoman said.
The 35 minutes of Vajusi’s bodycam video shows that within seconds, he believed the Cleveland teen was armed and ordered the 19-year-old to “drop your gun.” Vajusi then fired four rounds.
After Vajusi fired, the teen laid on the ground with his hands away from his body. He was not injured. Nor was he armed.
“Where’s the fucking gun at?” Vajusi asked.
“No gun,” the teen replied. “I’ve got no gun.”
“Why were you reaching then?” Vajusi said.
Vajusi told investigators and dispatch that the teen had a gun and called for a K-9 unit to search a field for a weapon. The K-9 deputy told Vajusi not to walk through the field. Vajusi did anyway.
It took nearly 12 minutes before a sheriff’s sergeant told a dispatcher to notify Cleveland police about the shooting.
Vajusi searched the field for the driver’s suspected gun with his firearm’s light. He pointed his weapon toward residences and other men detained on a curb. A sergeant ordered Vajusi to sit in his cruiser and pressed him about the gun.
“I thought he had a gun,” Vajusi replied. “It was really dark.”
At times, the body cam audio turned off as Vajusi spoke. Other deputies reassured Vajusi they would find the gun in the field.
After seeing Vajusi in the field again, the sergeant snapped: “I need you to sit in the car…That is my guidance to you.”
Deputies found a gun in the backseat of the teen’s car. Vajusi was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The October shooting unfolded as deputies say they were in pursuit of a stolen Nissan carrying three people, one possibly armed.
A 15-year-old was treated for a single gunshot wound and released to county juvenile court authorities.
Vajusi asked for and received stress leave from the department after the shooting.
A’aishah Rogers, the mother of the injured teen, called it “alarming and disgusting” that Vajusi shot another teenager so soon after shooting her son, who did not have a gun.
“These are people we entrust to police our streets,” she said. “Are they just hiring anybody?”
Kalfani Ture, an assistant professor who studies police practices in Pennsylvania, called Vajusi a liability to taxpayers and a “risk to the public.” He urged the sheriff’s department to remove him from the field or send him for more training.
“This particular officer’s immediate go-to is lethal force within split seconds of exiting his vehicle,” Ture said. “How do you even ascertain the facts if you come out of your patrol vehicle already with your finger on the trigger?”
Vajusi’s police background deserves extra scrutiny from sheriff’s leaders, Ture said.
“The pattern should be concerning to all,” Ture said. “He shop-hopped from agency to agency. Where there’s a pattern, there’s also smoke.”
