William Fambrough broadcast campaign messages for a mayoral challenger from his sound truck in East Cleveland, Ohio. City leaders then directed police to tow the truck, cite him, and push a prosecution that left him paying fees for a damaged vehicle.
More than five years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has stripped qualified immunity from former Mayor Brandon King and chief of staff Michael Smedley on key claims. The panel also revived Fambrough’s First Amendment retaliation claim against the city itself.
The ruling keeps alive a dispute over whether East Cleveland weaponized rarely enforced parking and noise rules against political speech. Fambrough has still not put his full case before a jury.
Fambrough had long been politically active in East Cleveland. He backed challenger Juanita Gowdy against then-Mayor Brandon King by driving a sound truck that broadcast campaign messages around the city.
Reason reported the enforcement surge that followed, drawing on the 6th Circuit record and filings tied to Fambrough’s federal suit. The Institute for Justice is also named in that account of the case.
King later described receiving a resident call about Fambrough’s sound truck and another box truck parked in a residential area. He said he told someone to take care of it.
On August 9, Smedley phoned then-Police Chief Scott Gardner. Smedley was extremely upset and called Gardner “incompetent” for failing to “take care of” Fambrough’s sound truck. He wanted “utmost enforcement as possible.”
Gardner had worried about selective use of a parking ordinance that bars trucks from parking in front of residential property except for loading or unloading. The rule was almost never enforced.
After the Smedley call, Gardner emailed the East Cleveland Police Department. He ordered officers to locate and tow the vehicle, cite the operator for disturbing the peace and loud music, and contact him “to claim a surprise.”
The 6th Circuit later described the command in blunt terms.
"On its face, the email told officers to tow Fambrough’s truck regardless of whether it was parked illegally."
The court added that the noise ordinance allows seizure only of “the sound device used,” and only upon conviction. Gardner’s tow order, the panel said, was not authorized by municipal law.
In August 2021, a swarm of officers went to Fambrough’s house and confiscated the truck. Fambrough alleged about $6,000 in damage to the vehicle. He paid $528 in fees to recover it.
City assistant law director Heather McCollough prosecuted him on the noise ordinance. A sworn declaration from Fambrough’s attorney later described McCollough listing issues that included complaints about the police department and public records requests, and saying Fambrough needed to “stand down.”
McCollough was typically willing to resolve minor noise complaints. She did not do so here. Fambrough ultimately pleaded no contest to a reduced disorderly conduct charge.
Gardner told the record that city attention on Fambrough looked unusual. The 6th Circuit captured his reaction.
"All the attention City officials gave Fambrough struck Gardner as unusual. 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."
East Cleveland faced heavy violent crime. Available data cited in the reporting put the rate at 1,409 per 100,000 residents, about four times the national average. The city was described as safer than only 1 percent of U.S. cities.
Against that backdrop, officials poured time into a sound truck and parking fight.
Fambrough sued the City of East Cleveland, King, Smedley, and others. He alleged First Amendment retaliation, unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and selective enforcement under the 14th Amendment.
The 6th Circuit rejected some claims. It held the seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment and granted Gardner qualified immunity on a “conduit” theory. It did not stop there.
The panel denied qualified immunity to King and Smedley. It also revived Fambrough’s retaliation claim against the city. Timing and enforcement patterns drove the analysis.
"Only after [Fambrough] began supporting Gowdy’s election was the weight of the law thrown against him. 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."
The court also said Smedley’s pattern of incessantly calling and berating Gardner “clashes with the idea that Smedley was chiefly concerned with minor permitting, noise, or parking issues.”
King won the election at issue. He left office in May 2025 after criminal convictions on multiple counts.
Those counts included 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.
The 6th Circuit action against King and Smedley in the Fambrough civil case stands on its own record of alleged speech-based targeting. Investigators and a jury, if the case reaches trial, will still have to sort liability and damages under the revived claims.
Authorities have not publicly framed the August 2021 tow as routine equal enforcement of everyday truck parking across East Cleveland. The circuit court noted the city rarely enforced the parking ordinance against others despite many chances to do so.
No public results in the record resolve every disputed motive claim claim-by-claim beyond the panel’s holdings. Fambrough is described as potentially closer to a jury, yet he has not actually stated his full case at trial.
The procedural posture is now clearer. King and Smedley cannot end the suit at the qualified-immunity gate on the revived theories. The city again faces a live retaliation claim. Gardner keeps the immunity the circuit granted him.
Parking and noise codes exist to keep streets orderly. When top officials drive “utmost enforcement” at a campaign truck while serious crime pressures a small force, the constitutional stakes rise fast.
The 6th Circuit did not invent a new right. It applied familiar First Amendment retaliation principles to a record of timing, rare enforcement, and direct pressure from the mayor’s office. That is how courts test whether ordinary ordinances become tools against disfavored speech.
Fambrough’s no-contest plea to reduced disorderly conduct closed the municipal case on its own terms. It did not erase the federal questions now moving forward.
When city hall treats a campaign loudspeaker like a priority target, voters should ask who the law protects and who it pursues. Constitutional order depends on answers that hold up in open court, not just in a tow yard.
