Put-in-Bay hides police probe

PUT-IN-BAY — A handful of people claim they were brutalized and wrongfully arrested by Put-in-Bay police in June. Did the officers act improperly? Maybe, maybe not. The village isn't saying. The Put-in-Bay council hired Paragon Investigations in late June to review the conduct of the officers who arrested nine people, most of whom are Black, after pulling over their golf cart for having too many occupants. During the incident — recorded on cellphones and police body cameras — several members of the group were shocked with a Taser and at least one officer pointed their gun and made threats to shoot someone. Now it appears the investigation is complete. But an attorney working for the village refused to release the report after the Register inquired with a public records request. Susan Keating Anderson, an Avon attorney who represents the village, replied to a Register reporter saying the report could not be released, claiming: • The records are exempt from disclosure as trial preparation records. • The records are exempt under "the common law attorney work-product doctrine." "The report was sought by the village in reasonable anticipation of civil or criminal proceedings arising out of the June 6, 2020, incident which, as you likely know, involved initial criminal charges against numerous defendants, sparking protests, public scrutiny and media attention," she emailed in reply to a Register inquiry. Exemptions she cited "allow a public entity the necessary confidentiality in order to appropriately investigate and defend itself against the potential liability that arises out of such circumstances as occurred on June 6, 2020, including the allegations of racially motivated actions, as you identify in your email." The controversial June arrests — which came at a time when America was reeling in the wake of George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police — drew criticism from the public, including the Sandusky chapter of the NAACP. Daryl Murphy, president of the Sandusky NAACP, questioned if the situation would have gone differently if the suspects were white. The Put-in-Bay Police Department has a complicated history. The department has been accused of failing to properly investigate roofie rapes. They let witnesses leave the scene of a brutal boat dock assault that led to a man's death in 2016. A standoff in 2017 ended peacefully only after the Ottawa County sheriff intervened. And they took it easy in 2018 on their former mayor when he allegedly drove a golf cart while intoxicated and crashed into a curb. Similar incidents of police misconduct on the island were routine for years prior to 2014. This summer, after the June arrests, the village sought change by hiring a new police leader. Put-in-Bay hired former Wood County sheriff's deputy James Kimble as the police department's new interim police chief. The current chief, Steve Riddle, is on leave. Kimble spoke on the Register's talk program, Between the Lines, after his hiring. He said he hopes to make the department a "team" and wants to improve the agency's reputation.