ELYRIA — Timothy Walton-Kirkendoll broke down sobbing Wednesday as a 911 dispatcher’s call to him as he was trying to save 2-year-old Demarius Boone was played during his trial on involuntary manslaughter and endangering children charges.

KRISTIN BAUER | CHRONICLE
Timothy Walton-Kirkendoll sits in court on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 28 as interview tapes are played.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Michele Silva Arredondo quickly called a break in the proceedings and had the jury removed from the courtroom as Walton-Kirkendoll slumped against defense attorney Michael Stepanik. After the jury was gone, Walton-Kirkendoll’s family rushed to comfort him.

When the trial resumed, Walton-Kirkendoll sat still as the remainder of the call was played.

The dispatcher had called Walton-Kirkendoll after Demarius’ mother, Latoya Tillman, called 911 to report her son was having trouble breathing. Tillman was returning home at the time and had called to check in with Walton-Kirkendoll.

When the panicked-sounding Walton-Kirkendoll answered the phone, he told the dispatcher that the toddler was having trouble breathing and smelled like liquor and acknowledged he might have gotten into something.

Later in the call, an argument appears to break out at the apartment just before the phone went dead and Walton-Kirkendoll can be heard saying, “I wasn’t here, man.”

Demarius’ uncle, Stephen Bullocks, testified earlier in the trial that the boy appeared fine when he picked up Tillman to take her and a friend to try to get a car out of the Ohio Highway Patrol’s impound lot.

In an interview recorded by Elyria police Officer Hans Van Wormer just hours after Demarius’ death on Oct. 12, 2012, Walton-Kirkendoll says that he walked out with Tillman, but didn’t return to her apartment at Chadwick Apartments.

Instead, he said he went to a party across the hall and had beer and some vodka before he eventually returned to Tillman’s apartment when he realized he’d forgotten his cigarettes. He said he found Demarius on the floor and that the boy appeared to have vomited.

Walton-Kirkendoll told Van Wormer that the boy was having trouble breathing and that he tried to revive him.

Tillman later summoned police and paramedics and Demarius was rushed to University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

During the interview, Van Wormer told Walton-Kirkendoll that there was some evidence that something had been inserted into Demarius’ rectum, but Walton-Kirkendoll denied doing anything like that.

An Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation test of a sample taken from the boy’s rectum was presumptive for seminal fluid, but a DNA test of the same sample only was able to find Demarius’ DNA.

Assistant County Prosecutor Sherry Glass suggested in a hearing earlier this week that someone could have entered the unlocked apartment and sexually assaulted Demarius.

Stepanik has argued that the boy may have been sedated by alcohol being inserted into his rectum, something Chief Deputy Coroner Frank Miller, who conducted the autopsy, testified is a possibility.

Glass has said it remains unclear exactly how Demarius suffered injuries to his back and elsewhere, but she has told jurors that the injuries happened while Walton-Kirkendoll was supposed to be watching the boy.

The trial resumes today.

The post Accused killer weeps as 911 call is played appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

ELYRIA — Two drivers were arrested and a third escaped after a three-vehicle police pursuit about 3 a.m. Thursday, police said.

Police seaerch a car that crashed on Broad Street at the East Avenue intersection in Elyria around 3 a.m. Thursday after a police pursuit. EVAN GOODENOW/CHRONICLE

The pursuit, involving Lorain County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Elyria police, ended with one of the cars crashing into a fire hydrant in front of Boomers, 305 Broad St., by the East Avenue intersection.

The driver of that car, a silver Honda Civic, ran away after the crash, said Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Bob Perkins. He said the Honda was stolen from Lorain. The driver remained at large Thursday night.

A second driver was arrested after he lost control of a black Honda Civic, driving over multiple curbs and onto the property of the BASF Corp., 120 Pine St., Deputy Gage Hume wrote in a report. He said that car was also stolen in Lorain.

Hume wrote that the incident began after he noticed the three vehicles driving closely together on West Avenue near Oberlin Road. He ran the license plate of the black Honda and found that it was stolen. When he tried to stop the car at the Sunoco station on East Avenue and Fourth Street, the driver sped away before crashing at BASF.

Deputies identified the driver of the black Honda as a 16-year-old boy of the 1900 block of East 36th Street in Lorain. He was turned over to the Lorain County Juvenile Detention Home. Hume recommended he be charged with reckless driving, receiving stolen property, failure to comply with an officer and obstructing official business.

A Jeep Cherokee that wasn’t stolen, but was involved in the chase, was stopped in the parking lot of the AutoZone, 103 Second St., by Elyria police. The driver was identified as Luis Alvarez Rivera, 19, of the 2900 block of Caroline Avenue in Lorain.

Rivera was charged with reckless driving, driving with a suspended license, obstructing official business and issued a seat belt violation citation. He was being held in lieu of a $1,000 bond in Lorain County Jail on Thursday night.

The post One driver arrested after early morning police pursuit; another remains at large appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina sheriff says he acted swiftly but carefully in firing a school resource officer caught on video flipping a disruptive student out of her desk and tossing her across the floor. In the wake of the firing, though, questions remain about whether the officer should have been in the classroom in the first place, and where the former deputy goes from here.

The Spring Valley High School student refused to leave the classroom Monday despite being told by a teacher and an administrator to do so, according to Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. That’s when Senior Deputy Ben Fields was brought in to remove her. She again refused, and Fields told her she was under arrest.

Video shows the deputy flipping the teen backward and then throwing her across the room. At that point, Lott said Wednesday, Fields did not use proper procedure.

“Police officers make mistakes too. They’re human and they need to be held accountable, and that’s what we’ve done with Deputy Ben Fields,” Lott said.

Outrage spread quickly after videos of the white officer arresting the black teenager appeared on the Internet. One question is if Fields should have been involved in the situation at all, or whether it was a situation that should have been handled by school officials.

“We know important work is ahead of us as we thoughtfully and carefully review the decision-making process that may lead to a school resource officer taking the lead in handling a student disruption,” Richland 2 Superintendent Debbie Hamm said in a statement.

It’s up to school teachers and administrators to deal with disciplinary issues, and a memorandum of agreement delineates the circumstances under which it’s OK for officers to get involved. The school district and sheriff’s department have yet to provide that document after repeated requests.

Lott said Wednesday that both the teacher and vice principal in the classroom at the time told deputies they supported Fields’ actions.

An attorney for Fields, Scott Hayes, said in a statement that the deputy’s actions were justified and lawful.

Fields’ was fired and banned from Richland 2 District properties. Federal and state investigations into his actions have just begun, so it will be unknown for some time if he will face charges.

The sheriff also had stern words for the student who he said started the confrontation by refusing to hand over her cellphone after her math teacher saw her texting in class — a violation of school policy.

Both she and another student who verbally challenged the officer’s actions during the arrest still face misdemeanor charges of disturbing schools, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail, Lott said, although in most cases, judges impose alternative sentences that keep students out of jail.

“The student was not allowing the teacher to teach and not allowing the students to learn. She was very disrespectful and she started this whole incident,” Lott said.

Lott declined to release Fields’ personnel file, but said none of the complaints filed against him came from the school district. He did say that he and other deputies were trained not to throw or push subjects away unless they are in danger.

An expelled student has claimed Fields targeted blacks and falsely accused him of being a gang member in 2013, court records show. That case goes to trial in January.

The girl in the videos remains unidentified, but she has obtained a prominent attorney — Todd Rutherford, who also serves as House minority leader in South Carolina’s legislature — who contradicted the sheriff’s claim Tuesday that the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was otherwise uninjured.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rutherford said his client has a hard cast on her arm and complains of neck and back injuries as well as psychological trauma.

Rutherford said he doesn’t know if race played a factor.

“I’m positive what he did to her should not be done to any human being,” he said. “It should not be done to any animal. If he was on video and a dog bit him, and he threw a dog across the room, he’d still go to jail.”

The post Deputy fired for flipping student from desk, but questions remain appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

ELYRIA — The city of Avon is appealing a county judge’s decision that declared a 3 percent bed tax increase imposed last year illegal.

In his decision, handed down earlier this month, Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Raymond Ewers wrote that the increase violated a state law that prohibits political subdivisions from imposing a bed tax if the county already is collecting one.

The county collects a 3 percent bed tax that is used to fund Visit Lorain County, which works to promote tourism throughout the county. Avon officials have complained in the past that Visit Lorain County doesn’t do enough to highlight their community.

The city had argued that the law didn’t expressly bar a city from levying an additional bed tax, but Ewers rejected that argument.

“If a county acts first under (the law), then a city or township situated within that county is precluded from enacting a hotel lodging excise tax,” Ewers wrote.

The Ohio Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus sued Avon over the new tax earlier this year.

Avon has collected a 3 percent bed tax since 1999 with the funds collected going into the city’s general fund. Because that tax was imposed under an older law, the organization didn’t contend it was illegal.

But the additional 3 percent tax, which City Council voted to impose last October and began collecting in 2015, wasn’t legal, the association argued, because of a later law that limited municipalities’ ability to collect an additional bed tax.

Half of the new 3 percent bed tax is supposed to go to the city’s general fund, while the rest is supposed to be used to fund an Avon-centric visitors bureau.

Avon Mayor Bryan Jensen said he was disappointed with Ewers’ decision.

He said the city has collected between $80,000 and $90,000 from the new bed tax, although those funds have been held in a separate bank account while the lawsuit was pending. Jensen said the city is asking for a stay that would allow the bed tax to continue to be collected while the appeal is ongoing.

The post Avon appealing judge’s ruling that bed tax increase was illegal appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

BURKESVILLE, Ky. — A fugitive accused of shooting a Tennessee police officer and firing at a Kentucky trooper was killed in a shootout with authorities early Friday, ending a nearly weeklong manhunt.

Floyd Ray Cook, 62, was pronounced dead at the scene in south-central Kentucky after being confronted by state troopers and a federal marshal who were searching an embankment, Kentucky State Police public affairs officer Billy Gregory told The Associated Press.

Cook was armed with a handgun and exchanged gunfire with the officers south of Burkesville, Gregory said. He was wounded and pronounced dead at the scene. No officers were injured.

The manhunt for Cook began after he was accused of shooting and wounding an Algood, Tennessee, police officer during a traffic stop last Saturday afternoon. He fled in a black Ford truck.

Just over an hour later, a Kentucky State Police trooper recognized Cook’s vehicle and tried to stop him in rural Cumberland County, just beyond the Tennessee state line, authorities said. Cook tried to speed away, but wrecked and jumped from the truck on foot. He allegedly opened fire on the officer, missed and ran into the woods.

A swath of the border between Kentucky and Tennessee had since been gripped with fear of the man authorities described as “armed, dangerous and desperate.”

With Cook no longer on the loose, residents in the area would be able to return to their normal lives, Gregory said.

“I think they’ll all breathe a little bit easier, knowing there’s no longer a threat,” he said Friday.

Convicted of rape in the 1970s, Cook was wanted in Marion County, Kentucky, for failing to comply with the sex offender registry, according to Sheriff Jimmy Clements. He also has convictions for robbery, burglary, assault and riot, and is wanted in Hardin County on an indictment charging him with trafficking methamphetamine and tampering with evidence.

Authorities sent out public alerts. Schools in the Cumberland County district called off classes for three days this week out of fear that students might cross Cook’s path.

Officials believed they had zeroed in on him late Wednesday. An investigator spotted a car associated with Cook at a gas station in White House, Tennessee, just off Interstate 65 north of Nashville, said Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Miller.

A marshal, believing Cook to be in the car, approached and the driver attempted to speed away, ramming two police cruisers and narrowly missing an officer on foot, the U.S. Marshals Service said. An officer fired at the car.

The car careened down a dead-end street, through a fence and into a ravine, Miller said. The two occupants fled on foot into the surrounding cornfields, he said. But neither turned out to be Cook.

Two of Cook’s known associates, Katy McCarty, 35, and her boyfriend, 50-year-old Troy Wayne, were found, arrested and were being held as fugitives.

The post Weeklong manhunt ends with fugitive killed in shootout appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

A U.S. Coast Guard officer who had been living in North Ridgeville was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison over his collection of child pornography.

Lt. Sean Barnhill fell under scrutiny after an investigation discovered he was using a photo-sharing website to store child pornography and other images, which he uploaded in August 2014

Barnhill’s home was raided by the FBI on Jan. 8. Investigators seized three computers and other items that revealed he had been accessing the Internet to search for child pornography dating back to at least 2011, according to documents filed by federal prosecutors. Investigators found more than 500 illegal photos and videos.

The devices also yielded a large collection of images of teenage girls posing nude in “selfies” and about 1,650 photos of one particular girl, who still has not been identified, in various stages of undress.

When he was initially questioned by the FBI, Barnhill was “arrogant and deceitful” and insisted that he wasn’t intentionally looking for child pornography, but he went to adult pornographic websites for chats and sex and role-playing, prosecutors wrote. He also tried to blame employees of Best Buy who had fixed his laptop for any illegal material investigators found.

During a later interview, Barnhill acknowledged he had sought out child pornography and said he was attracted to females as young as 11 years old and had traded illegal images with about 12 other people online.

The investigation also turned up violations of military law, including allegations of affairs, a sexual assault and graphic sexual messages that Barnhill sent from his computer at the Coast Guard facility he was stationed at in Cleveland, according to prosecutors.

Barnhill’s child pornography fixation was a terrible breach of trust and honor for someone who was a military officer, prosecutors wrote.

“There is nothing honorable about sexually exploiting children,” prosecutors wrote. “There is nothing honorable about pleasuring yourself while watching the most vulnerable among us being raped and sodomized. This defendant is, therefore, without honor and should be ashamed and embarrassed to try to use military service as a mitigating factor.”

In a sentencing memorandum urging U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko to impose a less severe sentence, Barnhill’s lawyers took exception to that argument, saying their client had a good career in Coast Guard.

“Obviously, the Government believes that the Court should not know about the Defendant’s service to his country and that any sentence should be fashioned without taking into account any of the good things that the Defendant has done in his life,” defense lawyers Michael Puterbaugh and Anthony Koukoutas wrote.

“The Government wants the Court to judge and sentence the Defendant on the worst thing he has ever done instead of basing the decision on the whole man.”

The defense lawyers also called it “troubling” that prosecutors suggested Barnhill “let his punishment be determined by an infantryman, a recon marine, a Navy Seal, an Air Force Combat Control or his Coast Guard peers.

“Have the strength of character to man up to the bar and pay the tab,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Skutnik and Lt. Commander Benedict Gullo wrote.

Puterbaugh and Koukoutas wrote that they hoped prosecutors weren’t suggesting vigilante justice in the case.

“We are a nation of laws and the defendant should be sentenced according to those laws,” they wrote.

The defense also argued that Barnhill has accepted responsibility for his actions and that he would be dishonorably discharged from the Coast Guard in addition to whatever sanctions were imposed in the criminal case.

They also wrote that Barnhill had cooperated with the investigation.

In addition to the 15 years he will spend in prison, Barnhill will be supervised for life following his release, according to federal court records.

The post Coast Guard officer sentenced to 15 years appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

OBERLIN — State troopers say they will ask the Bureau of Motor Vehicles that the man accused of fatally injuring a well-known Oberlin bicyclist in a hit-skip accident earlier this month be retested for his driver’s license.

The request comes as part of the investigation into the Oct. 10 accident in which, police said, Ronald Dicenzo, 76, was driving a car that struck a bicycle ridden by Charles Startup, 70, an Oberlin resident, one-time Peace Corps worker and avid bicyclist.

The move to seek a retesting of Dicenzo for his driver’s license came following interviews with the man after Oberlin police found his black 2014 Ford Focus parked in front of his Cedar Street residence in Oberlin.

“Due to some of the answers he gave during interviews, we red-flagged some of them and that led to us requesting that he be retested to see if he should operate a vehicle,” according to Lt. Carlos Smith, a commander at the Elyria post of the Ohio Highway Patrol.

Smith would not elaborate.

A report on the investigation into the accident is being reviewed by Smith, who said Friday the report will be forwarded to the Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office for a decision on whether any charges will be filed against Dicenzo.

Smith said he could not say what specific charges could be filed against Dicenzo.

“We work collaboratively with the prosecutor’s office to determine that,” Smith said.

Once the request for retesting is forwarded to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the BMV is empowered by state motor vehicle laws to conduct its own investigation into such a request to determine whether submitted information provides “good cause” that a driver is “incompetent or otherwise incapable of safely operating a motor vehicle,” according to information posted at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles website.

The BMV accepts “good cause” for requests for recertification of a driver’s license from law enforcement agencies, courts, physicians, hospitals, or rehabilitation facilities.

Law enforcement agencies or courts are required to have directly observed a person’s driving or had direct contact with the driver, according to the BMV.

Once the request from the Highway Patrol is evaluated, a letter may be sent by the BMV to Dicenzo informing him that he needs to be tested again. The letter also spells out the re-testing procedures, Smith said.

“We have the ability to request that it (retesting) be done, but we do not have the authority to take his license,” Smith said. “The BMV does that have power.”

The state patrol request asked that Dicenzo be required to submit to the driving portion of the state driver’s license test, not the written portion, Smith said.

Startup was struck from behind by a car as he rode his bicycle along Butternut Ridge Road the afternoon of Oct. 10. The car slowed momentarily, according to a witness, before speeding away, the state patrol said at the time.

Startup, who worked as a licensed independent social worker, was flown to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland where he was pronounced dead a short time after the accident.

Startup and Dicenzo lived only a few hundred yards from each other in Oberlin.

An Oberlin College graduate, Startup lived in the 200 block of West College Street, around the corner from Dicenzo’s house on Cedar Street.

Startup was well-known in the area for his bicycling, according to longtime friend Gary Goodwin, a Rochester, N.Y., resident who had visited with Startup in recent years.

The two men served as Peace Corps volunteers in their 20s in remote villages in India, where they helped impoverished people improve their ability to farm land.

The post Test of driver sought in fatality appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

LORAIN — A needlelike metal object was found in a candy bar handed out on Halloween on Saturday, a 17-year-old girl told police.

A police report was unavailable Sunday night, but police said in a Sunday Facebook post that the candy bar was distributed in the area of Oberlin Avenue and Leavitt Road between West Erie Avenue and West 14th Street. Alekzandras Boniscavage, who said she received the candy bar, didn’t return calls Sunday. However, in a Facebook post, she said she received the Baby Ruth candy bar between Oberlin and Park avenues between West Erie Avenue and West 10th Street.

Police Lt. Les Palmer said in an interview that no other complaints about candy being tampered with have been reported. Anyone with complaints can call police at (440) 204-2100. Palmer said police made the post as a precautionary measure.

“You know how kids are, they trade candy,” he said. “We just want everyone to be safe.”

The post Metal object found in Halloween candy in Lorain appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

LORAIN — A needlelike metal object was found in a candy bar handed out on Halloween on Saturday, an 18-year-old trick-or-treater told police.

A police report was unavailable Sunday night, but police said in a Sunday Facebook post that the candy bar was distributed in the area of Oberlin Avenue and Leavitt Road between West Erie Avenue and West 14th Street. However, Alekzandras Boniscavage said in a Facebook post that she received the Baby Ruth candy bar between Oberlin and Park avenues between West Erie Avenue and West 10th Street.

Boniscavage said in an interview that she visited 40 to 50 houses with her 16-year-old brother.

Boniscavage, who said she turned 18 Friday, said her tongue is sore from recently having it pierced, so she broke open the candy bar before preparing to bite into it.

Boniscavage, who said it was the first piece of candy from her bag that she opened, said she noticed the roughly half-inch metal object in the candy, which she said resembled a safety pin.

Boniscavage said she contacted police, who placed the candy in a plastic bag. She said she hasn’t examined or eaten any of the candy in her bag since the discovery.

Boniscavage said some people have accused her of perpetrating a hoax to get attention, but she said what she found was real. Boniscavage said she contacted police because she was worried someone else might have had their candy tampered with.

Boniscavage said she suspects she may have been targeted because of her age. She said some residents were angry about an 18-year-old seeking candy on a holiday traditionally reserved for young children, and some turned her and her brother away. “I didn’t want to sit home alone doing nothing, so I figured I’d go out trick or treating,” said Boniscavage.

Police Lt. Les Palmer said in an interview that no other complaints about candy being tampered with have been reported. Palmer said police made the post as a precautionary measure.

“You know how kids are, they trade candy,” he said. “We just want everyone to be safe.”

Anyone with information about candy being tampered with can call Lorain police at (440) 204-2100.

The post Not a treat: Object found in candy bar appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama has toured the country in a recent push for a criminal justice overhaul, he’s worried publicly about the possibility of his daughters’ teenage rebellion. He’s mused about his own drug use as a wayward youth. He’s told stories of being pulled over for speeding — and not always deserving the ticket.

In the national conversation about crime and punishment, Obama hasn’t been afraid to identify with the people being policed, as well as with the police.

It’s a remarkable shift in tone after decades of politicians worrying more about being labeled soft on crime than too hard on criminals. Previous presidents have talked tough on the topic and heaped praise on police. They’ve rarely woven in personal encounters with the law.

Obama, speaking to police chiefs in Chicago last week, praised police for their work but also called for “serious and robust debate over fairness in law enforcement.” He used himself as an example.

“There were times when I was younger and maybe even as I got a little older, but before I had a motorcade — where I got pulled over,” Obama told the crowd. “Most of the time I got a ticket, I deserved it. I knew why I was pulled over. But there were times where I didn’t.”

Such comments stand out from the history of presidential rhetoric in part because of Obama’s place in that presidential history. Questions of racial bias in the criminal justice system are not merely academic for him, noted Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for sentencing reform.

“He’s the first African-American president and his life experiences are different than others. He’s lived it — directly or indirectly — more than other presidents have. The empathy is there,” Mauer said.

But Obama’s comments also reflect the moment, Mauer noted. The current political conversation about crime, justice, race and violence in America largely has been driven by a course correction. A push to overhaul sentencing laws has bipartisan support in Congress. Violent images of police have sparked outrage about racism and use of force in policing. All of this is playing out while crime rates overall are down.

The contrast is stark from the conversation in the late 1980s, when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, was pounded by ads all but blaming him for the crimes of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while out on a weekend furlough. By 1994, President Bill Clinton was pushing for “the toughest crime bill in history” in his State of the Union address, and urging Congress to help him “reclaim our streets from violent crime and drugs and gangs.” Clinton referenced his days as Arkansas attorney general to boost his bona fides on the issue.

“There was an inclination in the old days to get tough, or at least not be a leader on this (criminal justice) issue. Now I think it’s much safer politically. Nobody is going to lose an election based on crime policy like they might have once,” Mauer said. “The days of Willie Horton seem pretty far away now, which isn’t to say they couldn’t come back.”

Obama isn’t facing re-election, which allows him to venture into a political danger zone. He was the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, where he sat with a handful of inmates and discussed their beefs with the system. He planned a visit Monday to Newark, New Jersey, to focus on efforts by formerly jailed people to re-enter society.

At a recent town hall meeting on drug abuse, he raised his own history of drug use and mentioned his 14- and 17-year-old daughters.

“They’re wonderful girls, but they’re teenagers. They do some … things. And I remember me being a teenager — and I’ve written about this — I did some … stuff,” Obama said. “What I think about is, there but for the grace of God, and that’s what we all have to remember.”

At each of these events, which are aimed at keeping pressure on Congress to pass reform legislation, Obama notes the role of race in law enforcement.

Obama’s remarks haven’t gone unnoticed by his political opponents — and may still affect his party’s bid to hold the White House.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie raised Obama’s remarks to police last week at the GOP primary debate.

“When the president of the United States gets out to speak about it, does he support police officers? Does he stand up for law enforcement? No, he doesn’t,” Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said. “I’ll tell you this, the number one job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of the American people. This president has failed, and when I’m in the Oval Office, police officers will know that they will have the support of the president of the United States.”

The post Obama gets personal as he advocates criminal justice reform appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As darkness falls, the most tattered section of this town’s main drag feels more desperate with each passing hour. Under the cover of night, a slow but steady flow of wandering souls emerges — addicts, prostitutes, drifters. Sergio Alvarez knew the pickings were easy.

As a rookie officer on the West Sacramento police force, Alvarez was assigned to the overnight shift on a beat that included West Capitol Avenue. He volunteered to stay on late-night duty and, over his nearly six years on the job, he gained seniority and almost always patrolled alone. With the solitude came opportunity.

“That’s where Alvarez falls through the cracks,” said Sacramento attorney Justin Gingery, whose firm represented four of eight women who said they were sexually assaulted by the officer, many in a dark alley near “West Cap.” Convicted last year of kidnapping five of those women and either raping them or forcing them to perform oral sex, Alvarez is now serving 205 years to life in prison.

Alvarez is a poster child of a predator cop — and of the flaws in policies, technological glitches, and culture of policing that can allow such behavior to go unnoticed or unpunished until it’s too late. His case prompted civil lawsuits over police procedures, with a total of $4.1 million to be paid to six victims who sued, and left a new chief taking a hard look at the way the department does business.

“It hurts the heart to see victims. But it makes it even worse when you are, in one way, shape or form, a contributing factor to them being hurt,” said Tom McDonald, a former captain for the Los Angeles Police Department who took over in West Sacramento after Alvarez’s arrest.

A yearlong Associated Press investigation illuminated the problem of rape and sexual misconduct committed by law officers in the United States, uncovering about 1,000 cops, jail guards, deputies and others who lost their licenses from 2009 through 2014 for such incidents. There are most certainly even more than that, because some states did not provide records and others, including New York and California, said they do not decertify officers for misconduct.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police spotlighted the problem of sex abuse by officers in a 2011 report that said certain conditions of the job may help create opportunities for officers to take advantage of victims — having authority over others, patrolling alone and late at night, and engaging with vulnerable citizens.

Those issues were hallmarks of the Alvarez case and many others, along with critical breakdowns in policies and procedures. Those include a lack of supervision and training fueled by budget cuts; misuse or malfunction of electronic systems meant to monitor officers; warning signs about potential misconduct that went overlooked; and a good old boy culture in which inappropriate behavior was ignored or even condoned.

A lack of supervision was a major finding in a March Department of Justice report about the San Diego Police Department, which has been hit with several sex misconduct incidents in recent years, including the case of Anthony Arevalos, an officer convicted in 2011 following accusations that he attacked 13 women.

Justice Department investigators found that budget cuts had hit that department hard, with staffing reductions a “key problem.” Nearly a quarter of sergeant positions — considered first-line supervisors — had been filled with acting sergeants who lacked the training and authority of their predecessors.

Sergeants also were not always working the same shifts as the people they supervised, and sometimes saw subordinates only once a week.

Shelley Zimmerman, who took over last year as chief in San Diego, is now, among other things, requiring patrol officers to wear body cameras to bolster accountability. Zimmerman also reinstated an internal misconduct investigative unit, and requires that more than one officer be present when any women are transported.

Police officials often say that the first line of defense in stopping any bad cop is the screening and hiring process. But in the Alvarez case, Gingery said his own investigation on behalf of his clients found nothing about Alvarez’s life before he joined the West Sacramento force that might have foreshadowed the trouble to come.

Alvarez was a hometown boy who graduated from the local high school, got married and worked at a grocery store before being accepted into the police academy. A few years later, Alvarez’s wife, Rachel, began to fear him, she said in a letter read at his criminal trial. By 2012, she wrote, “Sergio became a stranger to me.”

That was the same year he found many of his victims, using the power of the badge and any leverage he had — pending warrants, drug possession — to get what he wanted. One victim was an alcoholic, often seen on the streets collecting bottles and scrap metal for money.

“I remember when I was done, I stood up and I glanced straight at his name tag, and he said, ‘Now everything Mr. Alvarez does is a secret,'” she testified at trial, recalling the first of four sexual incidents with the man she called a “creepy cop.”

The criminal case uncovered several previous red flags: The GPS unit in Alvarez’s squad car was not working, which meant that no one could track or verify his location. He also routinely ignored an order to use the audio-visual recording unit inside his patrol car. The device captures what happens during traffic stops, recording the scene in front of a patrol car and also the back seat — where, in Alvarez’s case, investigators eventually found seminal fluid matching him and the vaginal fluid and DNA of one victim.

McDonald, the new West Sacramento chief, has implemented changes. He’s instructed sergeants to be more involved in direct supervision of street cops, and requires a supervising officer on all shifts, including the overnight. He is mandating that his officers use their audio-visual units and that cars get regularly serviced to ensure the units and GPS systems work. And the city has applied for a grant to purchase body cameras.

McDonald said the changes were not a specific response to the Alvarez case but rather part of an attempt to create an atmosphere in which officers quickly report any signs of misconduct.

“They need to understand that it’s an expectation that if they see something that’s inappropriate, they need to stand up.”

The post Policy flaws, lack of oversight and technological glitches allow ‘predator cops’ to operate unnoticed, unpunished appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

ELYRIA – The Lorain County Justice Center has been closed for the rest of the day because of an internal problem that has caused the building to lose power.

General Division Court Administrator Tim Lubbe said crews are working to restore power, but it was unclear how long that would take.

The building lost power shortly after 9:30 a.m. and although emergency power was restored roughly half an hour later, the bulk of the electrical systems remain offline.

Read Tuesday’s Chronicle for more on this story.

The post Power outage closes justice center for day appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

Avon Lake police said a 12-year-old girl told police that a man tried to grab her and pull her into a white panel van this morning.

Police were called to the area of Grove Street and Vanda Avenue, where the incident occurred.

Police said the girl described the suspect as a white male in his mid-20s got out of a white panel van and tried to grab her. The victim said she kicked him and then returned inside to her house.

Officers said they searched the area, but did not find any vehicles or people matching the descriptions. No other witnesses saw the incident, and police are asking anyone with details to contact Avon Lake Police Department.

The post Police: Man tried to grab 12 year old in Avon Lake appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

AVON LAKE – Police say further investigation of a girl’s report of an attempted abduction determined her recounting was inaccurate and embellished.

According to a press release issued by Lt. Scott Fishburn, a 12-year-old girl told police she was walking near Grove Street and Vanda Avenue when a van pulled up and the man driving it asked her if she needed a ride.

The girl told police the man exited his vehicle after asking her if she needed a ride and grabbed her arm. She then reportedly kicked the man and ran back to her residence.

“Further investigation has since revealed that the event as initially reported was inaccurate and embellished,” police said in a press release. “As a consequence, we will be working with the parents of the reporting juvenile to determine the best course of action.”

Police said they treat all allegations regarding the safety of children seriously but in this instance the girl’s allegations were brought into question. The area in question was busy with morning traffic, no one else saw anything out of the ordinary and detectives felt the story didn’t quite add up, Fishburn said.

“There were some discrepancies in her story that created a wider gap and she decided to come clean,” Fishburn said. “She’s claiming somebody still drove by and asked if she wanted a ride but everything after that point was embellished.”

The post Police: Abduction story `embellished’ appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

Police have identified the person they believe committed an aggravated robbery at Long John Silver’s on Cleveland Street on Oct. 28.

Chad Nichols

Chad Thomas Nichols, a 31-year-old Parma Heights resident, was identified using surveillance footage from surrounding businesses. Police also said they identified Maria Vlahopoulos as the driver of the vehicle Nichols got into after the robbery.

Both Nichols and Vlahopoulos were apprehended after police said they committed another aggravated robbery in Rocky River on Oct. 30.

During their investigation, police say departments in North Ridgeville, North Olmsted, Olmsted Township, Berea, Strongsville, Rocky River and Middleburg Heights all reported similar incidents with a similar suspect. According to police, after questioning Nichols and Vlahopoulos, both admitted to being involved in several other robberies in the area from the beginning of October until Oct. 30.

Nichols and Vlahopoulos were being held at the Rocky River jail.

The post Suspect in Long John Silver’s robbery arrested appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

The Elyria Police Department swore in six new officers at City Hall on Nov. 2. From left, Paige Mitchell, James Wise, Michael Walker, Ryan Conway, Jason Walland and Zara Hudson II. STEVE MANHEIM/CHRONICLE

ELYRIA — Six police officers were sworn in to the Elyria Police Department on Monday afternoon, bringing the force back up to nearly full strength.

The additions grow the department to 84. The city budgets for 85 officers.

The new additions all are part of what is known as the Lateral Transfer Program, which means they worked elsewhere and are certified already, which speeds up the time it takes to get them ready to work in Elyria.

“If they don’t already have the police academy, we have to send them there. That’s four months in time and $35,000,” Police Chief Duane Whitely said.

The new officers are Ryan J. Conway; Zara F. Hudson II; Paige B. Mitchell; Michael T. Walker; Jason M. Walland and James M. Wise. The officers previously worked around the area in North Ridgeville, Lorain County, RTA in Cleveland, West Salem and Grafton.

“I’m very excited, very anxious to start. I’m really looking forward to it,” Walland said.

The post Elyria PD adds six officers appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

ELYRIA — The Lorain County Justice Center was closed for most of the day Monday after a problem with an electrical transformer knocked out power to the building.

County Facilities Manager Karen Davis said power was lost about 9:30 a.m. and was mostly restored by 11:40 a.m. with everything being back online shortly after noon.

The restoration of power came shortly after county Probate Judge James Walther, the county’s presiding judge, and other elected officials made the decision to close the building for the rest of the day.

Walther said the problem was not so much the lack of electricity that kept computers and many lights off but rather the lack of plumbing.

Both Walther and Davis said the Justice Center uses electrical pumps to force water to the restrooms throughout the seven-story building, and those pumps aren’t tied into a backup generator used in power outages.

That meant that toilets couldn’t be flushed, and water fountains and sinks had only trickles of water coming out of them.

“We can’t remain open for any kind of extended period of time without water,” Walther said, adding that he’s asked Davis to look into finding a way to get the pumps connected to the backup generator.

Even that wouldn’t have worked in the beginning of the outage, because Davis said the surge was so powerful it tripped a breaker in the generator, causing that to go offline for about 20 minutes.

Davis said she plans to examine how much it would cost to hook up the water pumps to the backup generator. She said she believes the system is powerful enough to handle running the pumps because the generator is strong enough to power an elevator.

She said unlike last week, when a wider outage knocked out power over a large swath of Northeast Ohio, no one was stuck in the building’s elevators Monday.

“It could have been worse,” she said.

The closure of the building delayed numerous scheduled court proceedings, including the ongoing involuntary manslaughter trial of Timothy Walton-Kirkendoll, who is facing charges for his alleged role in the 2012 death of 2-year-old Demarius Boone.

That trial will resume today.

The post Justice Center closed as result of power outage; back to normal today appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

Law enforcement officers accused of sexual misconduct have jumped from job to job — and at times faced fresh allegations that include raping women — because of a tattered network of laws and lax screening that allowed them to stay on the beat.

A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked.

The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records.

In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years. And while there is a national index of decertified officers, contributing to it is voluntary and experts say the database, which is not open to the public, is missing thousands of names.

Some officers are permitted to quietly resign and never even face decertification. Others are able to keep working because departments may not be required to report all misdeeds to a state police standards commission, or they neglect to. Agencies also may not check references when hiring, or fail to share past problems with new employers.

In 2010, a woman sued the Grand Junction Police Department in Colorado, insisting the department erred in hiring officer Glenn Coyne and then failed to supervise him. Coyne was fired, and killed himself days after he was arrested on suspicion of raping the woman in September 2009.

That was sexual assault accusation No. 3, court records show. While Coyne was still with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, another woman accused him of subjecting her to a strip search and groping her. The complaint came after Grand Junction had completed its background check, and Mesa County officials — who declined comment — did not investigate or inform Coyne’s new employer, according to court records.

A second complaint came in 2008 when a woman accused Coyne of sexual assault. Grand Junction officials placed the officer on probation and cut his pay and, even though the district attorney declined to prosecute, Coyne was still on probation when the third accusation was lodged. While the courts found no deliberate indifference by police in employing Coyne, one ruling said the “handling of Officer Coyne could and should have been better.”

Grand Junction Police Chief John Camper said a subsequent evaluation of hiring procedures found them to be sound, but added that “it’s safe to say that we’re more thorough than ever.” Prospective officers must sign a form allowing the department to review previous personnel records, and it’s considered a red flag if employers don’t respond.

“If an agency won’t speak with us, or seems reticent to supply details, we’ll either dig further into other sources or we just won’t consider the applicant any further,” Camper said.

Police standards agencies in 44 states can revoke the licenses of problem officers, which should prevent a bad cop from moving on to police work elsewhere. But six states, including New York and California, have no decertification authority over officers who commit misconduct.

And in states with decertification powers, virtually every police standards agency relies on local departments to investigate and report questionable conduct. Those reporting requirements vary, said Roger Goldman, an expert on police licensing. About 20 states can decertify an officer only after a criminal conviction.

Consider the variations between Pennsylvania and Florida. In Pennsylvania, the state agency responsible for police certification reported just 20 revocations from 2009 through 2014, none for sex-related crimes or misconduct. Florida decertified 2,125 officers in those six years, some 162 for sex-related misconduct.

The difference: Florida is automatically notified when an officer is arrested and requires local departments to report any time an officer is found to have committed misconduct involving “moral character.” Pennsylvania relies on law enforcement agencies to report when an officer has committed a crime or misconduct.

The records provided to the AP did not include any decertification for former Pittsburgh police officer Adam Skweres, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to extorting sexual favors from five women and is serving up to eight years in prison.

Another concern is the length of the decertification process.

In Texas, Michael John Nelson was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old neighbor while working for the Hardeman County Sheriff’s Office. The local district attorney told the AP he did not prosecute in exchange for Nelson relinquishing his law enforcement license, an agreement reached with the victim and her family. Yet by the time his decertification was final in 2011 — a year after he left the sheriff’s office — Nelson had already worked briefly as a reserve deputy in the town of Bayou Vista.

Nelson said he told his new boss when he learned he was under investigation and turned in his badge once charges were filed.

Paul Odin, who replaced the Bayou Vista police chief who hired Nelson, said background checks often are limited by a department’s size and budget, and that “a lot of agencies, a lot of cities — to avoid lawsuits — won’t disclose anything negative.”

A National Decertification Index contains the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses. But despite calls since 1996 to expand the index and require participation, contributing remains voluntary, and only 39 states do so. Goldman, the decertification expert, said he believes every state should license and ban officers the same as they do other professionals, such as doctors and teachers. But law enforcement unions call that unnecessary when departments can fire officers and prosecutors can pursue criminal charges.

Ultimately, union officials said, policing the corps is the job of a chief.

“You’ve got to start at the beginning,” said Jim Pasco, director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “Did the process fail when they hired these people? … And that’s a problem that shoots through a whole myriad of issues, not just sexual crimes.”

The post Patchwork laws, lax screening allows ‘predator cops’ to move from job to job appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

LORAIN – A Lorain police dispatcher has resigned and her police officer husband has been given a 30-day suspension after an internal investigation determined she had improperly accessed information on her coworkers and in one instance eavesdropped on a private phone call.

Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera and other command officers noted that by listening to the call between an on-duty supervisor and a colleague, LeeAnne Failing, who formally resigned Tuesday, may have committed a crime.

The report said that Failing listened to the call through a feature on the Police Department’s phone system that allows calls to be replayed in case it’s hard to understand what a caller said during an emergency.

Failing told investigators that she listened to the call because she wanted to find out if her fellow dispatcher was calling off sick. She said she did so because another dispatcher didn’t want to work overtime because her mother was sick.

The report said she acknowledged what she had done, but that the dispatcher whose call she listened to “knows that people can listen.”

Safety Service Director Robert Fowler said he didn’t know whether the results of the investigation were being forwarded to prosecutors to consider possible charges. Rivera did not return a call seeking comment.

The report also concluded that on at least 29 separate occasions, Failing accessed information about her coworkers that she wasn’t permitted to view by using credentials provided to her by her husband, Lt. Michael Failing.

In a disciplinary hearing earlier this year, LeeAnne Failing said that her husband gave her his user name and password once because their home Internet was down and he couldn’t access the Police Department’s computers remotely, according to the reports compiled as part of the investigation.

She said she suspected that he had only given her the information so that she could sign him up for overtime or an off-duty job.

“She claimed that after this one time, he had no idea that she was using his password to access other employees’ information,” the report said.

LeeAnne Failing, who declined comment Tuesday, told investigators that she sometimes used the information she accessed to help supervisors on patrol with scheduling. She said that because of how overtime is handled, some dispatchers sometimes withhold information from supervisors and by sharing the information she had those supervisors could avoid scheduling problems.

She also said that “she acted alone and that ‘I did this to myself,’ ” the report said.

Rivera wrote in his report that “there is a very real possibility that she committed these acts in numbers way beyond the 29 times addressed here, but the evidence was erased because of limited recording capacity.”

Although Rivera didn’t make a formal recommendation for what punishment LeeAnne Failing should receive, he wrote in his report to Fowler that she should receive more than the three days he was allowed to impose as police chief, including possibly termination.

Fowler said when he brought up the matter with the union representing LeeAnne Failing, the union suggested she resign. Fowler said that resolved both the current allegations against her and a two-day suspension from earlier this year that stemmed from her handling of a call to Lorain Municipal Court that she had appealed.

Rivera did recommend that Michael Failing be given a 30-day suspension without pay and be demoted to sergeant if he has another disciplinary problem within the next year. Fowler followed that recommendation, although both he and Rivera noted that throughout his career, Michael Failing had been an exemplary officer.

“This is a difficult decision,” Rivera wrote to Fowler, before going on to say that Michael Failing actions “constitute a serious breach of security, policy and judgment.”

He wrote that Michael Failing knew or should have known what his wife was doing with his login credentials.

“The fact that Lt. Failing is a commissioned supervisor, charged with holding his subordinates accountable, adds to the egregiousness of this offense,” Rivera wrote.

Fraternal Order of Police President Kyle Gelenius wrote in a statement that the city had violated Michael Failing’s contractual rights and that they will challenge the discipline he received before an arbitrator.

“The discipline that was handed down by the city, in our opinion, is grossly excessive and will not stand up to an arbitrator’s review of the facts,” Gelenius wrote. “Lt. Failing is a highly respected supervisor in the police department and has provided exceptional service to the citizens of Lorain over his 21 year career as a police officer.”

The report also indicated that LeeAnne Failing committed other policy violations by making or receiving 81 personal calls over a nine-day period and that she improperly ate at her desk after she took her lunch break, something she blamed on a medical issue.

She told investigators that her personal calls didn’t interfere with her work and that those from her husband were all work-related even when he was off-duty.

The post Lorain dispatcher resigned, police officer husband suspended after investigation appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.

VERMILION — A police officer and dispatcher both were terminated Wednesday from the Vermilion Police Department for having sex while the officer was on duty.

David Jones

During a disciplinary hearing, Patrolman David Jones and dispatcher Katie Kovach admitted to having sex several times while Jones was on duty, police officials said.

According to filings from the hearings, Chief Christopher Hartung described the rendezvous as gross misconduct, and he recommended to Mayor Eileen Bulan that both Jones and Kovach be terminated.

It is against the policies and procedures of the Vermilion Police Department to use on-duty time to meet for the purpose of sexual relations and Kovach and Jones were both found to be in violation of several sections of the department’s code of ethics.

Although Kovach was off-duty each time the pair had sex, she admitted that she knew Jones was on duty the three times they met, and the department concluded she conspired with Jones to meet specifically while he was on duty.

“Your liaison with the patrolman could have jeopardized the safety of the citizens of Vermilion,” Hartung wrote in a notice of disciplinary hearing to Kovach.

Katie Kovach

Hartung strongly urged Jones to resign from the department and waive rights of re-employment in lieu of going through the disciplinary process. Jones was found to have neglected his assigned duties as a police officer and acting with dishonest and deceptive behavior when he used on-duty time to arrange meetings with Kovach.

“Your resignation may minimize the negative publicity, damage to your reputation and effect on your family,” Hartung wrote in a notice of disciplinary hearing to Jones.

Capt. Michael Reinheimer interviewed Jones and Kovach to investigate the allegations. A transcript of the interviews says one of the incidents happened on the night of Sept. 23 or the early morning hours of Sept. 24 when Jones and Kovach met at Jones’ ex-brother-in-law Patrick’s home while he was out of town.

Patrick had given Jones the keys to his house to feed the cat while he was gone, the interview transcript says.

The incident came to light because Jones’ wife discovered text messages on his cell phone that showed the planned meeting and she sent a screen shot of the text messages to Hartung.

In the texts, Kovach told Jones the officer in charge that night would never think to look at Patrick’s and that another patrolman “has no clue.” Jones replied to the text saying, “It’s perfect.”

The two met at Patrick’s house between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. and were at the home for an hour or two. During the course of the investigation, Kovach said she met Jones two times before that as well and they had sex at a business off state Route 60.

Kovach told Reinheimer that her relationship with Jones began in May or June after she had separated from her husband.

Rumors had circulated in the department that sexual activity had occurred on station but both denied that ever happened, although they did admit to getting “touch feely” a couple times while they were both on duty.

Kovach was moved to the opposite shift of Jones as the rumors began to circulate in an attempt to “stop the on station fraternization between the two.”

According to Reinheimer’s investigation, a department sergeant said he had a frank discussion with Jones about 7 p.m. Sept. 23 during a shift change regarding the rumors and he advised Jones to “cool things off” and to “not do anything stupid.”

Jones reportedly told the sergeant not to worry and that he didn’t plan to do anything stupid. The reports noted he met Kovach hours later on that same day.

In a notice of termination sent to Jones on Monday, Bulan said she found his conduct reprehensible and that by engaging in such activities during work hours Jones put citizens at risk because he wasn’t immediately available to respond to potential emergencies and he was outside of city limits during two of the meetings.

Bulan’s letter to Kovach says Kovach apologized profusely and said she had never engaged in similar behavior during her 11 years with the department.
Hartung had discussed the matter with Kovach when her shift was moved, Bulan’s letter states, at which time she denied being romantically involved with Jones and instead accused Jones’ wife of harassment.

Hartung said he expects both to grieve the terminations and he presumes the issue to go to arbitration.

The post Vermilion officer, dispatcher fired for affair on duty appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.