Reinstated officer will change zones
A Columbus police officer who was shown on a cellphone video stomping once on a detained suspect will work as a zone investigator, according to records obtained by The Dispatch.
Officer Zachary Rosen, 33, is working in Columbus police division’s Zone 2, which encompasses portions of the South Side, Southeast Side and Far East Side, as part of the its Strategic Response Bureau. The investigative assignment was signed off on by both the city and the local Fraternal Order of Police union and will last through next March. Rosen
Rosen previously worked in Precinct 5, which encompasses South Linden, when he stomped once on suspect Demarko D. Anderson’s head as Anderson was lying face down on a driveway entrance and was being handcuffed by another officer on April 8, 2017. The incident was captured on video.
Police pursued Anderson after he threatened people with a gun, then struck the arresting officer and fled before he was captured. A Franklin County jury last week found Anderson guilty of a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon, with a gun specification, and a misdemeanor charge of aggravated menacing. Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye also convicted him of illegally having a gun after a previous felony conviction, which carries a more serious penalty than the jury’s convictions.
Anderson, 27, could be sent to prison for as long as five and a half years when Frye sentences him on May 17.
Rosen had just transferred to an afternoon position on Zone 4, which includes both North and South Linden, when he was fired in July by Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus.
On March 5, an arbitrator overruled the city’s decision to fire Rosen and instead went with the police chief’s original recommendation of suspending him for 24 hours. He is receiving $55,880 before taxes in back pay for the time he was off.
Rosen is one of two officers who shot and killed 23-year-old Henry Green while working undercover in June 2016 in South Linden. Green opened fire on the officers at some point. Rosen fired 15 shots at Green. A grand jury cleared the officers of any potential charges. The division ruled the level of force was justified in that case.
This isn’t the first time the city and the police union have reached an agreement to move an officer. Officer Bryan Mason, 32, shot and killed 13-year-old Tyre King, who was armed with a BB gun that appeared to be a handgun, shortly after a robbery in 2016. An agreement was reached to remove Mason from patrol and move him to narcotics work until November.