FBI investigating two officers accused of arresting trucker at Hinckley bar, authorities say

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Authorities are investigating two police officers in connection with the arrest of a truck driver at a Hinckley bar in April, officials said Monday.

A Hinckley police report lists Officers Donald Kopchak and Daniel Lajack as suspects in the case and mentions allegations of assault, obstruction of public service, kidnapping and false imprisonment.

The incident involved a driver from Dallas who is also an immigrant from a small African country. Officers said they believed he might be a terrorist, according to body camera footage. The investigation led officers to fire Kopchak, a Cleveland police officer, and Lajack, a detective with the Lake County Narcotics Agency, from their positions in the federal force.

“I am disheartened by the officer’s actions and statements,” Cleveland Police Chief Annie Todd said in a statement Monday. “The actions depicted do not represent who we are as a department, our policies or our training.”

The case was forwarded to the Medina County District Attorney’s Office but was not filed. Instead, the FBI took over, Hinckley police said. An FBI spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Todd also said that Medina County prosecutors and the FBI are investigating and that Cleveland’s internal investigations division is “working with them and monitoring the investigation.”

Kopchak, 40, has been a Cleveland police officer since 2007, while Lajack, 48, has worked in Lake County since 2000.

The officers worked for federal task forces but were off duty at the time of the incident at Buzzards Roost in Hinckley, a small bar on the corner of Ohio 303 and West 130th Street. Kopchak worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, while Lajack worked for a unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

An ATF spokeswoman said Kopchak is no longer a member of the task force. A spokesman for the Cleveland police union did not respond to a request for comment.

Patrick Hengst, the head of Lake County’s drug unit, said Lajack no longer works for the DEA unit. He said Lajack has been placed on restricted duty.

“I see an embarrassing situation, and he regrets it, but I don’t see anything else,” said Adam Chaloupka, an attorney for the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Lajack is a member of the union.

The incident was recorded on Red Zone Watch, a YouTube channel that makes police body cam footage available to the public.

Because Hinckley officers were busy, Brunswick police responded to Buzzards Roost at 11:07 p.m. on April 26. Bodycam video shows Lajack approaching an officer and explaining that he and Kopchak were at the bar when they encountered a man they believed to be an illegal immigrant, according to the video.

As the man tried to leave, according to the video, he was grabbed by Lajack and Kopchak, one of whom held him to the ground with a leg hold until officers arrived.

“He might be on a watch list,” one of them said, according to the video. They feared appearing on the news for releasing a terrorist, the footage shows.

Instead, police said, the man was actually a truck driver from Dallas who was delivering goods to the Aldi warehouse on West 130th Street, just down the street from the bar. He was supposed to deliver the goods on Monday. Since he was there early, he decided to go to the bar, police said.

Officials in Brunswick had difficulty understanding the driver, Yonas Bokredingil, because he is from Eritrea, a country near Ethiopia.

“I told them everything,” Bokredingil told Brunswick police.

The footage also shows Brunswick officers discussing why Lajack and Kopchak would arrest a person in this manner. Brunswick police said the two officers believed the man may have been a terrorist.

“Does that sound reasonable to you?” said a Brunswick official.

“No. That’s what I tried to tell them,” said another patrolman.

Attempts to reach Bokredingil were unsuccessful.

A bartender at Buzzards Roost told Brunswick police that Bokredingil was being polite and having a good time with the other patrons when the two officers became aggressive toward him, claiming the truck driver was an illegal immigrant, according to the video.

The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com do not publish the names of people under investigation as a matter of policy, but the newspaper identified them because the officers have been removed from task forces, are on reduced duties and are now the focus of a federal investigation.