Records: Ohio officer quit while under investigation
A Newark police officer who resigned in February did so while under investigation — seemingly for exchanging suggestive messages on social media with a high school girl.
Records provided to The Advocate through a public records request show the 36-year-old officer resigned in early February from the Newark Division of Police, where he had worked since 2018. The officer had been on paid administrative leave since October, according to his personnel file.
The Advocate is not naming the officer because he has not been charged with any crime.
In early March, the Ohio Attorney General’s website listed the officer’s departure from Newark police as being a resignation while under investigation.
The officer’s personnel file did not include details about the nature of that investigation, however, the date he was placed on leave was one week after the last message in an exchange with a teenage girl provided as part of The Advocate’s records request.
The Advocate reached out to Newark police Chief Erik Mckee for additional information. But Mckee did not respond to emails or phone messages seeking comment on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Police officials never completed their investigation into the officer, according to the records. However, The Advocate received copies of screenshots of private Instagram messages between the officer and another person. The identity of the person is redacted, but parts of conversations indicate the person is a girl who is still in high school and participating in extracurriculars, including at least one sport.
The messages began in late August, around the time the academic school year started, with the officer reacting to an unknown post on the girl’s Instagram story, a way to post something on the image-focused platform that is only visible for 24 hours.
Within a day of the first message that is included in the screenshots given to The Advocate, the officer is joking with the teenage girl about how she might like if he were to “whoop that butt.”
The officer also comments in other messages, using emojis that typically are used to indicate a person being attractive or finding another person to be “hot,” about the girl’s lips and body.
“SMH (Shaking my head) u have some sexyyy lips on you,” one of the messages reads in part, followed by a video of some type being sent from the officer to the girl, who reacted with a blushing emoji. The video is not included in the records provided to The Advocate.
The following day, the officer sent a message to the girl after not getting a response during school hours, to which the girl responded that “I’m just trying to make sure out of respect for you that no one sees.”
“Your awesome,” the officer responds. “I do miss talking to you all day (emoji) lol u bring excitement to my days.”
In another message in the same exchange, the girl tells the officer “i just usually don’t care who sees my phone but now I kinda have to.”
The officer tells the girl that he is operating on her time and said “if i can trust u and u trust me then whenever u want to say hi in person (smiling emoji) we can do that. Maybe hug too.”
“Of course u can trust me and yeah i’ll definitely take u up on that offer (blushing emoji),” the girl replies, to which the officer responded “music to my ears lol and can’t wait to see ur face. might get excited and pick u up.”
The time between messages begins to be longer and appears to have moved off of Instagram, according to the records provided, throughout September, however the pair had some sort of conversation about the officer’s marriage. In a message from late September, the officer tells the girl “to what u said about homewrecking lol def understandable but that has been done,” before talking about a break down in his marriage.
The messages continue through midoctober, including photographs the officer sent the girl of him lifting his shirt up while in shorts in what appears to be a gym locker room. The outline of the officer’s genitals is visible in the photograph. The last message provided to The Advocate is dated Oct. 12. One week later, on Oct. 19, the officer was placed on administrative leave. Nothing in the letter regarding the officer’s leave provides information about the allegations against him and only includes a reference to an unspecified internal investigation.
That investigation ended without a conclusion when the officer resigned from the police department. It was not clear from the records whether the officer was ever interviewed as a part of the investigation between Oct. 19 and his resignation in February.
Newark police did not provide any investigative documents or narrative from the incomplete internal investigation.
The officer is not facing any criminal charges, according to Licking County court records. There is no indication from the messages whether the officer and the female ever met in person.
The officer was appointed to be a school resource officer in 2021, according to his personnel file. He worked at the Career and Technical Education Centers of Licking County.
In April, the officer received a written reprimand after an employee at the school complained about a racially insensitive joke that the officer made. As part of the discipline he received, the officer was ordered to undergo cultural sensitivity training. He also was removed from CTEC.
bbruner@gannett.com