Tanisha Anderson

Tanisha Anderson, 37, a Black woman with bipolar disorder who had been discharged from a behavioral health facility weeks earlier, died on the night of November 12–13, 2014, after Cleveland police officers Scott Aldridge and Bryan Myers handcuffed her and took her to the ground outside her family's home. Her family had called police for help during a mental health episode; officers agreed to take her to a hospital for evaluation, but she became distressed at the patrol car and a struggle followed, ending with her prone on the ground in handcuffs. She lost consciousness and died. The county medical examiner first ruled her death a homicide associated with prone restraint, a finding later complicated by a second autopsy. The City of Cleveland settled a wrongful death suit for $2.25 million in 2017, and in February 2018 a Cuyahoga County grand jury, hearing a case led by a special prosecutor from the Ohio Attorney General's office, declined to charge either officer. No one has ever been charged in Anderson's death.

Cleveland, OH · Cuyahoga County

• 2014: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The 911 calls, the encounter, and Anderson's death, per the Ohio Attorney General's review, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's investigative file, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's reports, and reporting by the Associated Press, Ideastream, and Mother Jones.
• Anderson's brother called police around 8:15 p.m. on November 12, 2014, after she left the Windsor Laurelwood Center for Behavioral Medicine; a second call came about 45 minutes later saying she was trying to leave the house in a nightgown. Officers Scott Aldridge, a training officer, and Bryan Myers, a rookie who had joined the department that year, responded.
• Officers and family members persuaded Anderson to go to a hospital; the Ohio Attorney General's review found the officers' and witnesses' accounts of what happened next to be disputed. The officers said she went to the ground on her own and kicked at them; her family said she was claustrophobic, jumped from the patrol car, and was slammed to the ground and kneed in the back while prone.
• A law enforcement official familiar with the sheriff's investigation told Mother Jones that Anderson was on the ground in handcuffs for roughly twenty minutes before EMS arrived; Cleveland police's internal affairs review separately found the officers failed to provide medical assistance.
• The county medical examiner ruled her death a homicide, attributing it to sudden death associated with physical restraint in a prone position, in association with ischemic heart disease and bipolar disorder with agitation; obesity was also cited as a factor.
• A county judge ordered the first page of that autopsy stricken from the record because it contained material from the officers' compelled internal statements, and the Ohio Attorney General's office ordered a second autopsy, which Cleveland Scene reported found she died of heart disease and other health reasons.
• The City of Cleveland agreed in early 2017 to a $2.25 million wrongful death settlement with her family, and an outside consultant concluded the officers had used excessive force.
• A Cuyahoga County grand jury, which began hearing testimony in late September 2017 in a case presented by the Ohio Attorney General's special prosecutions chief, declined to indict Aldridge and Myers in February 2018; the officers' attorney said the grand jury reached the “just conclusion that these officers did nothing wrong.”
• In March 2018, Cleveland's safety director suspended Aldridge for ten days without pay and issued Myers a written warning.
• In November 2024, Cleveland City Council members introduced “Tanisha's Law,” legislation to codify co-responder teams pairing police with mental health professionals.

• Whether Anderson's death was caused by prone restraint, as the first autopsy concluded, or by heart disease and other health conditions, as the second reportedly found, was never resolved at any trial, since no charges were brought.
• How long Anderson lay handcuffed and prone before medical help arrived has been described publicly only through an unnamed official's account to a reporter, and the full sheriff's investigative file has not been made comprehensively public.
• What the grand jury heard beyond what has been reported, and the reasoning behind its decision, is not public, as grand jury proceedings are secret under Ohio law.

• Ideastream Public Media — “Grand Jury Decides Not to Charge Officers in Death of Tanisha Anderson”
• Mother Jones — “Questions Mount About a Mentally Ill Black Woman's Death in Police Custody”
• Cleveland Scene — “Grand Jury: No Charges for Cleveland Police Officers in Death of Tanisha Anderson”
• WCBE / Associated Press — “Cleveland Cops Cleared Of Criminal Charges In Death Of Tanisha Anderson”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs