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Cops Suspended for Barging into Rooms
MICHAEL C. FITZPATRICK, Morning Journal Writer
05/29/2003
OBERLIN -- Three Oberlin police officers will be suspended without pay
for violating department policy during a February incident in which
officers entered students' rooms at Tank Hall without permission while
searching for a stolen stop sign.
Sgt. David Jasinski, who was the shift supervisor, was given a four-day
suspension without pay; Patrolman Steven Chapman was given a three-day
suspension without pay; and Patrolman Jonathan Witt was given a one-day
suspension without pay, according to Police Chief Michael Moorman.
The suspensions will be served in July or August, Moorman said.
Witt and Chapman were on patrol when Witt noticed the portable stop
sign, which was set up because there had been a power outage earlier,
was missing from SR 58 and College Street, according to the original
report of the incident.
Witt discovered tracks in the snow indicating the sign had been dragged
east on College Street to the front yard of Tank Hall, 110 East College
St., where it stopped at the steps leading into the building, the
report said. Witt and Chapman were then able to locate the sign,
according to the report, after being told it was in room 302.
However, the report is a far cry from the scene that three students
described in citizen complaints.
In those complaints, Oberlin police were accused of entering several
rooms in Tank Hall without warrants or permission, including the room
of one student who slept in the nude. The officers were also accused of
using foul language with students while conducting their search for the
stop sign.
''Clearly, in my opinion, the theft of the portable stop sign did not
justify your actions at Tank Hall,'' wrote Moorman in a memo dated May
26 in which he announced the suspensions.
Moorman said his investigation uncovered that Chapman filed an
inaccurate report that failed to indicate the officers had entered any
rooms, other than the one where the sign was found.
''The city administration does not want any citizen treated in the
manner that the students at Tank Hall were treated, waking an entire
dormitory at 4 a.m. in the morning ... over a $100 portable sign,''
Moorman wrote.
Jasinski, who was in charge of the shift, was taken to task by Moorman
for his role in the incident for allowing Witt and Chapman, ''to commit
several improper actions affecting the residents of Tank Hall. Sgt.
Jasinski should never have approved the report submitted by ...
Chapman.''
Witt and Chapman were both cited for violating the department's consent
to search rule as well as for improperly interacting with the public.
Chapman was also cited for filing a report that was not truthful and
accurate, according to Moorman.
Moorman wrote in his report that Jasinski told him the officers knocked
on several doors in the search, but the chief had no idea of how
widespread and aggressive the search actually became until he received
a call from the parents of a student whose room was entered by police.
''As I listened to the parents, it was apparent that the report written
by Patrolman Chapman and approved by officer in charge Sgt. Jasinski
described neither the actions of the involved Oberlin police department
officers, nor the actual sequence of events,'' Moorman wrote.
Moorman said having to discuss the incident with the parents without
the proper information was ''embarrassing to me personally and
presented an unprofessional image of the Oberlin Police Department.''
Moorman also openly pondered in his finding why the officers would so
aggressively search for a portable stop sign when the entire city was
without power and chaos was unfolding at the station where the police
dispatcher was receiving ''hundreds of calls.''
According to police records, Chapman has been suspended twice before.
Once in 2001 for discharge of a firearm and three days in 2002 for
failure to use a vehicle in a safe and skillful manner.
Jasinski was suspended once before for three days for leaving a
prisoner unattended, which allowed the prisoner to escape. The
department did not provide the year of that suspension.
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