Send us Fan Mail

Every legacy media outlet in Cleveland ran the press releases, aired the clips, and moved on. Nobody read the appellate record. Nobody stayed with the story. I did.

On May 2, 2025, I identified the exact legal problem that 7 judges on the Ohio Court of Appeals Eighth District just confirmed this morning was serious enough to stop everything and examine. Today, July 6, 2026, the full court granted en banc review in State v. McInnes — meaning the question of whether the burden of proof was on the wrong party in Ian McInnes's trial is now before the entire court.

In this episode I break down:

— Why the trial may have been structurally broken before the first juror was seated
— What Cleveland v. Graham actually says and why it directly contradicts the jury instructions used in McInnes's conviction
— How the United States Supreme Court's 1989 Graham v. Connor decision established the objective reasonableness standard that was ignored in that courtroom
— The officers who took plea deals to escape that broken framework and why they may now be permanently locked out of challenging it
— What en banc review means, what happens procedurally from here, and what the three possible outcomes are for McInnes
— Why this ruling affects every excessive force prosecution in the Eighth District going forward and potentially every officer in Ohio

Legacy media did not cover the appellate oral argument. They did not cover the attorney's statement that the only way to fix this is a new trial. They are not covering today's en banc ruling. You are hearing about it here because this is the only platform that never stopped asking the question everyone else decided was already answered.

Justice does not need a press release. Truth does not need a hashtag. And no officer should have to survive a courtroom just to survive the job.

I'm Scott Gardner — former cop, former homicide detective, former Chief of Police. This is The Infamous Ex-Chief.

🌐 theinfamousexchief.com

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

They closed this case and called it "likely" self-infliction. But here's what the actual file says. 🔍

Bryon Macron was a Lafayette Township trustee in Medina County, Ohio. He was also a trained FAST Marine. On December 16, 2016, he texted a business contact at 12:36 AM to say he'd be there the next morning. Seventy-four minutes later, a vehicle matching his pulls into the township lot in the dark. He was never seen alive again. His cause of death is officially undetermined to this day.

I went through the file. Not the headlines, not the narratives — the actual documents. BCI's own timeline. The Winterich bloodstain pattern analysis. The DNA lab report. Victoria's witness statement. The autopsy. And the Medina County Sheriff's own captain on the record.
What's in there doesn't support the conclusion they announced. Two conflicting bloodstain analyses of the same room, four years apart — and the public only heard one of them. Two unknown DNA profiles at the scene with no public match ever announced. The man who found the body has no documented formal interview in the file. The agency's own captain stated publicly they never identified a motive for self-harm. And five boxes of case files were found on a shelf in a locked room in September 2025 — nine years later — files the current sheriff didn't know existed.

I'm not telling you what happened to Bryon Macron. What I'm showing you is that the conclusion the state announced doesn't hold up against the state's own documents. That's not my opinion. That's the record.

Receipts are in my Discord. Everything I say, I can show you where it came from. 📄

www.theinfamousexchief.com

#procopnotprocorruption #TheInfamousExChief #BryonMacron 🚔

00:00 The Last Message
00:29 What the Disinfo Cartel Won't Tell You
01:10 50 Videos, One Standard: Receipts
02:05 Why This Voice Matters
03:22 What This Episode Is and Isn't
04:00 Who Was Bryon Macron
05:16 December 16, 2016 — The Scene
07:00 The Initial Investigation: What BCI Said About It
08:21 The Body Discovery — And the Witness Nobody Interviewed
09:37 Five Boxes Nobody Knew Existed
10:38 Darren's Theory — On the Record
11:11 What the Theory Requires You to Ignore
12:08 The Night Before: Star Wars and a Last Text
13:38 The Unidentified Visitor
15:00 BCI's Own Timeline
16:21 The 12:36 AM Message
17:29 The Four-Hour Gap
18:32 The Winterich Bloodstain Analysis
19:52 Two Analyses, One Room, One Question
20:40 The DNA Report
22:37 No Motive. Still Called It Likely.
24:00 Where the Case Officially Stands
25:24 The Five Boxes, Revisited
26:00 Putting the Chief Hat On
27:30 Six Questions That Deserve Public Answers
28:34 Receipts First. Always.

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

Six search warrants. Four agencies. One outcome nobody can explain on the record. 🔍

Michael Bernhardt was a Rocky River police officer for 29 years. For the last 12, he was the school resource officer with a badge, keys to every building in the district, and daily unsupervised access to students. He also spent 16 years on the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, where he posed as a 12-year-old girl to catch predators online.

On January 18th, 2024, BCI Special Agent Heather Karl obtained six search warrants in a single day, one for every major platform. Every warrant listed rape, sexual battery, gross sexual imposition, and kidnapping as the basis for probable cause. A Cuyahoga County judge signed them six separate times. The word rape appears in those warrant documents more than 12 times.

The special prosecutor the City of Rocky River hired to investigate wrote, in his own words, that the evidence showed "a pattern of Bernhardt grooming high school girls." That is the language he sent to state investigators.

On November 3rd, 2025, Michael Bernhardt walked into court and pled guilty to three counts of unauthorized use of a law enforcement database. Three misdemeanors. He served less than 30 days. He is not on a sex offender registry. 📄

This is episode one of The Worst-Kept Secret in Rocky River, a five-part investigative series built from the complete BCI investigation file, 155 documents, six search warrants, four witness interview recordings, the OLEG audit, and internal case notes. I read every page. I listened to every interview.

The gap between what the evidence says and what the system did with it is the question this series is built around. I don't have every answer. But I have the receipts. 🚔

www.theinfamousexchief.com

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

A progressive blogger named D.J. Byrnes, who runs the newsletter The Rooster, was sitting in a public hearing at the Ohio Statehouse when the State Highway Patrol walked up and arrested him. The charge was a first-degree misdemeanor for telecommunications harassment. The conduct behind it was an AI cartoon of Shrek and two text messages sent to State Senator Jerry Cirino, a Lake County Republican Byrnes has mocked in print for years.

The warrant came from Kirtland, up in Lake County, about 200 miles from where Byrnes was arrested in Franklin County. That distance is the whole story.

I ran a police department. I have entered warrants and made the pickup radius call myself. A non-violent misdemeanor warrant is supposed to reach your county and the ones next to it, never clear across the state. For this arrest to happen the way it did, somebody had to enter the warrant with a statewide reach. Somebody checked that box on a Shrek picture.

In this episode I walk the documents in order, facts first and claims labeled as claims:

• What Ohio Revised Code 2917.21 actually requires, and why intent is the hinge the whole case swings on
• State v. Ellison and why "offensive" is not the same as "harassing"
• How the complaint came in, a senator emailing the chief by name asking for charges, then telling reporters he requested no such thing
• The judge who signed the warrant and carries that senator's campaign endorsement
• The affidavit that pulled banking records and out-of-state history over three text messages
• Four discretionary forks in the road, and why every single one broke toward the most aggressive option

None of it is illegal. That is exactly what should bother you. This is the kind of abuse of power that uses the law instead of breaking it, one perfectly legal choice at a time.

Pro Cop, Not Pro Corruption.

Read more and follow the case: www.theinfamousexchief.com Everything in one place: https://liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

Christine Russo AKA the Big Sister: Unhinged has stayed quiet for four years. Not anymore. 🔍

On July 31st, 2022, her younger brother Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan died when Mackenzie Shirilla drove a Toyota Camry into a brick wall at nearly 100 miles an hour. A judge later found Shirilla guilty of murder. Two counts. 15 years to life. Then Netflix released The Crash, and the family realized the public was being shown a version of this story that left out the people who actually knew Dom.

In this interview, The Big Sister: Unhinged sits down to break down what the documentary got wrong, AND right, what was left out, and who got platformed who never should have been. She talks about the two friends Netflix presented as Dom and Davion's "best friends" who were actually Mackenzie's closest allies. She breaks down the four-day unconscious story that fell apart when her cousins started screenshotting TikToks from Mackenzie's hospital bed within hours of the crash. She talks about the Metro Health police report from August 2020, where Steve Shirilla told officers his daughter had tried to take a boyfriend's life before, then tried to retract it. 📄

We get into the EDR data, the so-called "carny talk" jail calls two language experts could not translate, and the red flags Dom's family did not see coming. Christine also launches Dom's Law, a petition to modernize Son of Sam laws so convicted violent offenders and their families cannot profit from social media, interviews, or crowdfunding tied to the case. 15,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. 🚔

This is law enforcement accountability journalism backed by the public record. Receipts, not opinion.
Sign Dom's Law and follow Christine's work linked below.
💬 https://bit.ly/4dK3bXp
🌐 www.theinfamousexchief.com

#TheInfamousExChief #ProCopNotProCorruption #DomsLaw

00:00 The case nobody thought needed another look
03:15 Who Dom really was
09:15 The morning the call came in
16:15 When the family stopped believing Mackenzie
20:35 EDR data and the 4.75 seconds
27:35 What Netflix got wrong — and who got platformed
40:15 The "carny talk" jail calls
45:00 15 to life and life behind bars
52:35 Dom's Law
57:30 Where to find The Big Sister Unhinged

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

Government Won't Release Records? Here's Why "Ongoing Investigation" is ILLEGAL

When you request public records, government agencies love hiding behind "ongoing investigation." But that's not how the law works.

In this video, I break down:
✓ What Ohio law ACTUALLY says about investigations
✓ Why agencies use this as a blanket excuse
✓ Real examples (Village of Hyrum, Valley Forge)
✓ How the Ohio Supreme Court already ruled on this
✓ What you can actually do about it

This isn't legal advice (I'm not a lawyer), but it's the law as written and as ruled by courts.
📋 LAWS CITED:

Ohio Revised Code § 149.43(A)(1) - Public records presumed open
Ohio Revised Code § 149.43(A)(1)(h) - Investigation exemption
Ohio Revised Code § 149.43(B)(3) - Must explain denials
State ex rel. Myers v. Meyers (2022 Ohio Supreme Court)
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E) - Federal FOIA

🏛️ WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Request records in writing
Demand redactions, not total denial
Require specific legal explanation
Escalate to Ohio Attorney General
File mandamus or Ohio Court of Claims action

⚖️ DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed attorney. This is based on my personal experience, research, and publicly available law. Consult an actual lawyer before taking legal action.

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

Bryan Malinowski ran the Little Rock Airport, had no criminal record, and sold coins and guns at weekend gun shows as a hobby. He never got a warning. Never got a letter. The ATF showed up at 6AM with 10 vehicles, breached his front door in 28 seconds, and shot him in the head.

Two years later, not one agent has faced any consequence. No press conference. No report. Nothing.

Attorney and former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins represents the Malinowski family. He breaks down exactly what happened that morning — the taped doorbell, the missing body cameras, the botched entry, and widow Maer Malinowski left outside in 32-degree weather for over three hours while her husband lay dying inside.

This isn't anti-cop. It's pro-accountability. There's a difference, and this case shows exactly why that difference matters. We're talking police misconduct, federal overreach, and an ATF investigation that went sideways before it ever started.

If you care about government accountability, the Fourth Amendment, or just think a man deserves better than this — watch the full interview.

www.theinfamousexchief.com

#ProCopNotProCorruption #TheInfamousExChief #BryanMalinowski

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief

Send us Fan Mail

I released a detailed investigative breakdown of the Parma Heights Police Department's incident report from April 20, 2026. This video covers critical details that haven't been widely reported, and I'm correcting a mistake I made early in my coverage.

CORRECTION: I repeatedly mispronounced Officer Christopher D. Rossman's name throughout my initial reporting. He deserves accuracy. His detailed narrative in this report is central to understanding what happened at Valley Forge High School that day.



www.theinfamousexchief.com


KEY DETAILS FROM THE POLICE REPORT:

Officer Christopher D. Rossman arrived 3 minutes after dispatch received the call. He found the suspect on the cafeteria floor with a gunshot wound to the right side of her head. Security Officer Ron Rose had already made the firearm safe.

The officer's narrative describes multiple pieces of paper and envelopes on cafeteria tables that appeared to be suicide notes. One note apologized to custodians for the mess. The envelopes were addressed to assorted other parties.

The property inventory lists six separate letters logged as evidence. The officer's narrative and the formal evidence log use different descriptions—either a documentation discrepancy or the same items described differently.

A backpack with at least two different student ID cards attached was found on another cafeteria table. Neither appeared to match the suspect at first glance. School surveillance video later confirmed the backpack belonged to her. The property inventory for this backpack has three full lines of notes completely redacted—more redacted than almost anything else in the entire report.

WHAT'S BEING WITHHELD:

1. The actual incident report about the social media call received minutes after the shooting. Officer Rossman's narrative references this call but the report itself was not provided by Parma Heights Police.

2. Body camera footage. Ohio law is explicit: body camera is a public record. There is no pending prosecution. There is no criminal defendant. Parma Heights Police checked the box claiming legal justification but provided none.

3. Full contents of the redacted backpack notes.

4. Complete details about what was in the six letters.

THE CRITICAL QUESTION:

When was the social media call received? If somebody called in a tip about the suspect's social media posts BEFORE 2:10 PM and no action was taken, that changes everything about the official narrative.

WHAT I'M PURSUING:

- Every redaction in this report
- The missing social media incident report
- The full body camera footage
- Clarification on Marcy's Law invocations
- School surveillance video confirmation of timeline
- Complete documentation of what was in those letters and that backpack

PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS:

If you have been part of any public records request related to this case, or if you work in Parma Heights government/schools and have information about protocols, timeline, or what was known when—please reach out.

CONTACT:

Information, screenshots, or documentation: scott@theinfamouschief.com

This investigation is ongoing. More details will be released as they become available.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE VICTIM:

This investigation is conducted with full respect for the family grieving the loss of their daughter. The focus is on institutional accountability and transparency, not speculation or sensationalism.

---

Support the show

Visit: https://www.liinks.co/the.infamous.exchief