Mansfield police officer Moore resigns
2 inquiries unrelated to shooting of suspect
Jordan Moore, a Mansfield police officer under investigation for shooting a Columbus man earlier this summer, resigned from the force on Monday.
His resignation came after an internal review — unrelated to the June shooting — found Moore failed to properly investigate two traffic crashes that occurred in May.
Moore's performance was deemed to be unsatisfactory for both incidents.
In one, Moore, after being dispatched to a hit-skip at 381 Ashland Road, did not respond to the scene, did not complete an accident report and called the victim instead of visiting her in person.
Due to Moore not responding to the scene, no photos of the crash were taken.
Less than a week later, Moore left the scene of a hit-skip at 265 S. Diamond St. and located the suspect involved in the crash, though he didn't let dispatch know what he was doing.
In addition, Moore told a supervisor that the suspect, found sitting in a damaged car, was not the person involved in the hit-skip, when all evidence suggested otherwise.
“Although the vehicle was located parked on private property, the suspect vehicle matched the description of the vehicle given by the victim and direction of travel given by the victim, wrote Lt. Stacie G. Garrick in the review.
“Officer Moore is being untruthful stating there was ‘no relevance' between this suspect arrest, and the initial hit-skip investigation that he had been dispatched to and he is also untruthful stating that the keys were outside of the suspect vehicle.”
Instead of conducting an OVI investigation, Moore arrested the person for intoxication.
A pre-disciplinary conference had been scheduled for Monday, but Moore, who has a record of reprimands and suspensions, submitted his resignation that same day and it was accepted by police leadership.
Moore, 25, had been on administrative leave since June 16, when he pursued a Columbus man to a house on West Fourth Street and shot him multiple times with his pistol. Police have said Moore fired his weapon after Maxwell Davis pulled a gun.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is conducting an investigation into the shooting, and will continue to do so after Moore's resignation. The results will be given to the Richland County Prosecutor's Office.
The shooting marked the second time in less than a year that Moore had been placed on administrative leave.
In October, Moore grabbed the hooded sweatshirt of a handcuffed, seated teenager and dragged him several feet in a parking lot on West Fourth Street. The teenager, then 17, suffered a broken wrist, according to his family.
Moore was given a 60-day suspension for the dragging, which Porch referred to in a statement as a misapplication of force.
But the suspension was reduced to 10 days just two weeks after Moore returned to work and he received 50 days' worth of back pay.
The police department made the decision to trim the suspension after an arbitrator overturned a separate suspension.
In that case, Moore was initially suspended for three days in May 2020 for failing to photograph or collect evidence from the scene of a hit-skip crash. In addition, Moore completed a report that had “inaccurate, false, or improper information,” according to a copy of the violation.
But an arbitrator ruled that Moore had been disciplined without “just cause” and ordered the police department to give him a written reprimand instead.
During his more than three years on the force, the Willard native racked up a multitude of departmental offenses.
Prior to the June shooting, Moore received seven departmental reprimands and two suspensions, according to his personnel file obtained by the News Journal through a public records request. The offenses ranged from using profanity to not filing reports to reckless driving.
After graduating from the police academy in May 2017, Moore joined the New Washington Police Department as a part-time officer. He then joined the Sandusky Police Department in August 2017 as a reserve officer, who accompanies a full-time officer.
Moore was not disciplined while in Sandusky, nor was he the subject of complaints, according to a personnel file obtained by the News Journal in a public record request.
Moore's MPD personnel file details dozens of instances where he used force when arresting someone. In most cases, that person was not complying with demands or was resisting arrest, according to officer summaries.
In addition to Moore, the Mansfield Police Department last week had seven other officers on paid administrative leave for various reasons. mtrombly@gannett.com 419-521-7205
Twitter: @monroetrombly