Cedar Point police decision welcomed

There's a new sheriff in town, kind of. When Cedar Point opens in May 2023, the Sandusky Police Department will be fully in charge of all policing authority inside the park and at every other park-owned property in the city. Already, city police officers are at the park and the department will be expanding that presence over the course of the next 10 months. For the time being, however, the Cedar Point Police Department will still have a presence. It is in the process of being disbanded, however, and that's a decision that has been long overdue. While the relationship between the park police department and the city police has always been good, the ultimate oversight at the park needs to be in the hands of a public police force, not a private one. That became apparent after an accident at the park on Aug. 1. The park police and Cedar Fair L.P. management mishandled the accident, which caused a Michigan woman to become severely injured after a hunk of metal dislodged from a coaster train on the Top Thrill Dragster and hit her in the head as she stood in line for the ride. Police and park officials kept all the details about what occurred secret after a brief announcement. That secrecy the park insisted upon seemed more akin to a third-world dictator's absolute rule than how a police department responds when a serious, life-threatening accident happens. Police departments are by nature, and by law, dedicated to serve the public's interest first and foremost, and one way they are held to that standard is the required transparency in reporting about crime and about serious injury accidents. With few exceptions, police departments and public agencies, in general, are required to track their activities and provide complete records of those activities when requested. The park-imposed secrecy surrounding this incident exposed the serious potential that policing authority in the hands of a private company is prone to abuse, even if the abuse is unintended. The park's failure to respond prompted the Register to ask the Ohio Court of Claims to require Cedar Point's police department to respond to public records requests the same way every other police department in Ohio is required to respond, and to track and report crime and accidents in the same manner other police departments do. It became apparent, however, that the court was likely not going to rule in favor of the newspaper's position without an extended period of litigation, even after the park acknowledged the concern that prompted the lawsuit. Through its attorney, Cedar Fair, the park's corporate parent, responded that its police department wasn't really a police department, it was a security force. That court filing from Cedar Fair prompted this response from this editorial board: "Giving a private company police powers without the responsibility to act in the public interest is a bad idea in theory and in action. It's an open invitation to abuse and to decisions being made based on the self-interest of the company, not the public's interest," the editorial board wrote in the Sept. 20, 2021, edition. The editorial called for change, and the decision last week is the change we hoped would happen. The Sandusky Police Department is a professional law enforcement agency that fully understands its obligation to protect and serve, and to report its activities in the interest of the public.