A Cleveland police dispatcher has been arrested and charged with child endangering after her child tested positive for marijuana, and she is now pleading not guilty as her case moves through municipal court. Miranda Lopez was released on a personal bond and remains on restricted duty with the department while the criminal case against her proceeds.
The arrest was uncovered by the Fox 8 I-Team, which reported that Fox 8 found Lopez, a Cleveland police dispatcher, was charged with child endangering. Court records reviewed by the station show Lopez's case was assigned to a judge and is proceeding through Cleveland Municipal Court, where she has entered a not guilty plea. According to the underlying complaint, Lopez is the mother of the child at the center of the case, and prosecutors allege she created a substantial risk to the child's health or safety by violating a duty of care, protection, or support. The child tested positive for marijuana in February 2026, per the complaint.
What Ohio Law Requires To Prove The Charge
Because there is no allegation of serious physical harm, the case is expected to proceed as a first-degree misdemeanor under Ohio Revised Code § 2919.22(A), which carries a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to LHA Law. Ohio law elevates child endangerment to a felony only when serious physical harm is inflicted or when a defendant has prior qualifying convictions, per the same legal analysis. To convict Lopez, prosecutors do not need to show she intended to harm her child — instead, per Godinsky Law, they must meet Ohio's recklessness standard, meaning they must prove she acted with heedless indifference to a known, substantial risk to the child's safety.
That standard exists even though Ohio voters legalized adult-use recreational marijuana by passing Issue 2 in November 2023, with statewide retail sales opening on August 6, 2024, according to the Moritz College of Law. Adult personal possession is legal statewide, but child welfare and criminal statutes still penalize exposing minors to controlled substances, the research notes. Revised cannabis regulations that took effect in March 2026 under Senate Bill 56 also require that any home-cultivated marijuana be kept in a secured, enclosed area inaccessible to anyone under 21, per the same Moritz College of Law summary.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among persons aged 11–14 years, the mean number of weekly cannabis-involved emergency-department visits during the pandemic ranged from 69.8 in 2020, weeks 12–23.
Dispatcher Remains On Restricted Duty As Records Requests Stall
Cleveland police have placed Lopez on restricted duty amid the case. Under the Cleveland Division of Police's General Police Orders, personnel placed on restricted duty during an active investigation are reassigned to administrative duties and removed from public-facing or operational tasks, according to the City of Cleveland's own policy documentation. That status effectively keeps Lopez off the street-level dispatch floor while the criminal matter and any internal review continue.
The City of Cleveland has not released the police reports requested by the I-Team, the station reported. That delay is not necessarily improper: under the Ohio Public Records Act, government entities must provide requested records within a reasonable period of time, but the statute sets no fixed calendar deadline, according to a records retention analysis from Laketran. Agencies routinely withhold or delay releasing police reports while internal affairs or criminal reviews remain pending, the analysis notes.
What Comes Next In Municipal Court
With her not-guilty plea entered, Lopez's misdemeanor case will move from arraignment into pre-trial discovery exchanges and pre-trial conferences, with the possibility of a bench or jury trial down the line, per a description of Cleveland Municipal Court procedure from the Patrick M. Farrell Co. law firm. That process gives both defense counsel and city prosecutors time to negotiate or exchange evidence before any trial date is set.
Lopez's arrest adds to a string of recent cases involving Cuyahoga County-area police dispatchers facing scrutiny for personal or professional misconduct. Hoodline previously reported that a part-time Highland Heights dispatcher resigned after running over 20,000 unauthorized Flock camera searches. Public salary data updated in July 2026 shows Cleveland police dispatchers earn between roughly $33,000 and $40,000 annually depending on civil service classification, according to Indeed, underscoring the modest municipal role now under a legal cloud.
The broader landscape of child endangerment prosecutions in Cuyahoga County has ranged widely in severity in recent months. In late August, a Cleveland mother pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering tied to the starvation death of her 2-year-old son, a case Hoodline covered separately. Lopez's case, by contrast, involves no allegation of physical harm to her child, and she is presumed innocent as it proceeds through court.
