new tool to increase transparency of LEO's in hiring

[M-Quigley]

https://www.whio.com/news/local/new-too ... YAFIXZW4Y/

This is an issue I've personally witnessed back in the day with certain depts. and not just with PD's either but also fire depts. I'm surprised it took so long to address the issue.

COLUMBUS — A new tool should make it more difficult for police officers with past problems to bounce from department to department in Ohio.

The tool involving records on law enforcement separations is now available to the public and law enforcement agencies on the Ohio Attorney General’s Office’s website, through the public records section of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA) portal.

Now the public records section will not list the reason for a law enforcement officer’s separation from a department. It will include things like:

An officer resigning while they were in good standing or because they were under investigation, or instead of getting fired
Retirement or retirement because they were under criminal investigation
If an officer separated from a department because of a criminal conviction or because they were fired

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said police chiefs and sheriffs across the state asked for this change.

For years, News Center 7 has been talking to law enforcement leaders and police reform advocates who have said an officer should not be allowed to simply resign if that officer is in the middle of a disciplinary process. Instead, they’ve said that information should follow that officer to their next job.

[Brian D.]

Will be interesting to see if this flies with the attorneys who represent clients under investigation. It's not like employers with employees under scrutiny have to make those "Mum's the word" termination deals, but they often do, for a variety of reasons.

One obvious reason is that full disclosure will show anyone watching that the employer may have been knowingly allowing such bad behavior to go on for a long while without doing anything. That throws shade on supervisors from the mayor or sheriff, on down the chain. Was it incompetence or willful dereliction of their roles as bosses?

I could type out a bunch more about this topic, based on things I saw myself, or was close enough to the participants to figure out without any wild speculation.

[Brian D.]

Thought of something else: This program will seemingly "require" agencies to keep better records of the training received by their personnel. Sounds good, but like I do often ask: Does this have any "enforcement teeth"? If not, it's bloviating from Attorney General Yost.