Columbus police need to polish their tarnished image

There are times it’s good and times it is not so good to draw national media attention. The July 11 arrest of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels by Columbus police falls into the latter category.

The initial exposure was embarrassing enough for the Mayberry-esque light it cast on this city that deserves more respect on a national stage.

Now new questions about the motivation of officers who carried out the arrest have generated even more negative national publicity for a police division that already has plenty of issues to resolve. A spokesperson indicted on child porn charges, ongoing race relations concerns, an expired labor contract headed to factfinding and last year’s record homicide rate were already enough to tackle.

Hopefully, an internal investigation underway will get to the bottom of new revelations arising last week that Daniels’ arrest may have been politically motivated. That’s certainly how her personal attorney, Michael Avenatti, sizes up the big picture exposed in a flurry of emails sent by an officer involved in the arrest.

As reported last week by news outlets including Rolling Stone and CNN as well as The Dispatch, Detective Shana Keckley sent emails from her personal account to her police account the day before Daniels was arrested. They included information about Daniels’ claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with then-businessman Donald Trump along with details about her planned appearance at Sirens, a Northeast Side strip club.

The problem with all that is it doesn’t match the official explanation from the Columbus Division of Police for the bombshell arrest of Stephanie Clifford, which is Daniels’ legal name. At the time, police said Daniels was caught up in an ongoing investigation of human trafficking and prostitution at strip clubs and the like. But a Dispatch review of Franklin County Municipal Court records shows Sirens had not been a target of dozens of vice arrests in the past year.

Making the motivation even more suspect is Keckley’s chortling after the arrest as she emailed a copy of the complaint against Daniels to another officer with the comment, “You’re welcome!!!!!... Thank me in person later.”

If there is a remedial training class for Columbus police officers, Detective Keckley needs to go there pronto and get a refresher on the duty she is sworn to uphold. There is no room for bias of any type in officers’ obligation to enforce the law and certainly not political bias. We have way too much of that already in just about every quarter.

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein was right to dismiss the charges against Daniels within hours and to subsequently announce that the city will forgo prosecuting charges under the law used to arrest her because of questions regarding its interpretation.

The Dispatch also commends the police division for issuing a directive July 18 to prohibit vice and narcotics detectives from entering strip clubs for work without prior approval to investigate a specific complaint.

Police supervisors shouldn’t have to micromanage, but better to prevent a PR blunder than to have to mop up after another reputation crisis. Frankly, we’re tired of the good work of most of Columbus’ 2,000 officers being sullied by a few illadvised decisions and bad behaviors.