'I'll Fucking Kill You': Joe Jones Accused of Threatening Coworker; City Council to Vote on Censure in September

Ward 1 Councilman Joe Jones at a City Council meeting in early 2024. Jones has been accused of at least seven separate incidents of harassment in the workplace, going back to June of 2022. Credit: Mark Oprea

A memo released by Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin today recapped the results of an investigation into more allegations against Councilman Joe Jones, who was previously investigated for multiple allegations of misconduct over the years and who stepped down from his committee assignments after it found a “sustained pattern of inappropriate and unprofessional behavior.”

Jones, who is running for re-election and who recently won the endorsement of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in that race, is now facing more scrutiny after the latest investigation found two new allegations against him credible and that he violated multiple council conduct policies.

Council, in response, will vote on a possible censure of the councilman in September.

The first allegation recapped in Griffin’s memo: That Jones, on May 19, threatened a coworker multiple times during a meeting at City Hall.

“On Monday, Joe Jones threatened to kill me,” an email from an anonymous coworker to Griffin reads, sent May 22. “I’m quoting what I’m certain I will always remember: ‘I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll fucking kill you on your motorcycle.’”

“There has not been one real problem like this in almost 18 years,” Jones’ colleague wrote. “The more I thought about this, the more it began to bother me. Unfortunately, I had to consider the possibility that he wasn’t joking.”

Jones contended to investigators that he was in fact joking and had said, “I’ll blow you up on your motorcycle,” not that he would kill them. Investigators said the material outcome of either statement is the same.

The second incident occurred the same day: Hours later, about halfway through Council’s weekly meeting, Jones sat next to a woman who had previously accused him of intimidation. A no contact order had been put in place, the woman noted in an incident report, which Jones was apparently violating.

In a recording by TV20, Jones is seen about 50 minutes in, occupying a seat typically reserved for Council’s communications director, Darryle Torbert. He sits there for five minutes until Torbert walks over to Jones to, it seems, ask him to leave.

“As I have stated many times,” the report says, “I am afraid of Mr. Jones and fear for my safety when he is in the immediate area.”

The same employee said Jones’ assistant called her five times the next day.

Jones told investigators he didn’t realize he was sitting next to the woman or that a no-contact order was in place, adding that he didn’t tell his assistant to play the calls.

One of the incidents was captured at a recording of Council’s May 19 meeting, where Jones is seen sitting next to a colleague who previously requested a no contact order against him. Credit: TV20

“This is yet another attempt to address your inappropriate and unprofessional conduct in the workplace,” Griffin wrote in his memo.

That line is a reference to Jones’ previous incidents.

There was the meeting in Council Chambers on May 31, 2024, when Jones apparently made comments to a muralist that made her feel, as she later wrote to Griffin, “extremely uncomfortable.”

And last February, Jones was accused of grazing a staff member’s breast, which he defended as accidental. And in 2022, two staff members cited his “disrespectful” verbiage while yelling at them over a deadline for casino fund spending.

Jones “acted and behaved like a sexist bully,” one staff member recounted, “and I can only hope I never have to have any interactions with him.” City Council later hired an outside firm to investigate Jones and later place him on supervision.

“It is frustrating to all involved that you continue your unacceptable behavior even after the corrective and disciplinary actions taken following the prior investigation,” Griffin said in his memo Thursday.

“You should know that, but for the fact that you are an elected official,” he said, “in any other workplace setting you would likely be let go.”

Jones was ordered to take workplace conduct and threat awareness training.

Scene reached out Thursday to Jones’ office for a comment. “No we can’t talk about the campaign, any political anything or whatnot,” a staffer said before hanging up.

In a press conference Thursday afternoon, two days after the report was finished, Griffin urged everyone to understand that his recommendation to censure Jones had nothing to do with the upcoming primary election on September 9.

Six days later, on September 15, Council will vote in a preplanned meeting on whether or not to censure Jones. If they do, as Griffin reminded press, it would be the fourth time Council has tried to take such a measure and the first since the 1970s.

“This is about accountability,” he told press from Council Chamber. “There is no political agenda here. This is about doing what’s right.”

Ward 12 Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer, one of two other councilpersons in the room during Griffin’s speech, joined her colleague’s call for Jones’ potential censure in September.

“For Joe Jones to threaten to kill a staff member, these threats are beyond the pale,” Maurer said. “This report underscores the disturbing pattern of Councilmember Joe Jones’ inappropriate, unprofessional and even threatening behavior.”