WHITEHALL, Ohio — The local Fraternal Order of Police is demanding Whitehall’s leadership open an investigation into actions at the city’s police department.
Brian Steel, President of Lodge #9 of the Fraternal Order of Police, along with Don Fletcher, a former Whitehall police officer, spoke to the council Tuesday night. The two raised concerns about officer morale within the department along with accusations of retaliation and controversial policies from the police chief and deputy chief.
Steel, in an interview Wednesday, said these issues have been growing over time.
“It’s been building up for a couple years. We’ve rotated different union reps in there to work with them. We try to build bridges. We want a harmonious relationship,” said Steel.
Mike Crispen, Whitehall Police Chief, responded to the allegations made Tuesday night.
“This is nothing more than a political stunt not supported by most of my employees. The evidence of that is the vote of no confidence conducted by the lodge rather than my agency officers,” wrote Crispen.
Members of the FOP unanimously passed a vote of no confidence against Crispen.
“It shows the need for an investigation. We are asking for an independent, third party entity to come in an investigate these allegations,” said Steel.
The FOP also accuses the department of enforcing “quotas” on its officers, a controversial ticketing policy. Steel said the department doesn’t explicitly call it a quota, but punishes officers if they don’t meet certain “performance measures."
“They don’t them quotas. They get around that. They call them performance measure tools. It’s shift expectations. It’s a quota. There’s a mechanism that said you fell short on tickets. You fell short on arrests. Therefore you are subject to discipline,” he said. “It puts undue pressure on an officer. It tells them to go out there, take away your discretion, and issue tickets, maybe to someone who didn’t deserve a ticket. Our job at the end of the day is we are protectors, not revenue generators.”
Chief Crispen denies the allegations of there being a quota policy in the department.
“I oppose quotas but support workforce evaluation relative to the average workload of all the officers. No one has ever been disciplined for not meeting some ‘quota’ or even the work ethic evaluation,” Crispen wrote.
Crispen also responded to allegations that morale was low in the department and it was causing a turnover.
“Morale is low for some and very high for others. I do an anonymous survey every six months which measures morale. Low morale is directly connected to those who complain that we make them do too much proactive work (these are also the officers who tend to be lower on the performance scale). Morale is very high for those who say they love the ability to do police work,” wrote Crispen. “Applicants said they liked to come to Whitehall because they are “allowed to do police work.” As you can see from the last few days, not all police want to work at that level. So, we are attracting a higher number of officers who like to be proactive to prevent crime rather than reactive – only responding to calls. So, strategically, we have seen officers leave because they do not like the workload, and they have been replaced with officers that love it.”
Steel said turnover at the department is too high and something unseen of a department that size.
“We’ve seen nothing like this. It’s 50 to 56% of officers have left in the last five years. He’s only been chief for seven. So over half of your department left,” Steel said.
The FOP is also taking legal action against the city of Whitehall. The union alleges the department placed Enrique Ortega, a Whitehall Police officer serving as the FOP’s grievance officer in the department, on leave after he raised morale and policy concerns with the chief and mayor. Steel said this action was a violation of state union laws.
It also claims Ortega received a notice from Chief Crispen that he told a commander he would “start stirring things or messing things up” if Mayor Bivens did not act in a manner to his liking.
Whitehall Mayor Michael Blivens responded to the legal action and the allegations made Tuesday night.
"The city of Whitehall takes the allegations seriously and will continue to address the lawsuit on its merits,” Bivens wrote.
Chief Crispen said these allegations have been brought up in the past and there has been no evidence to support the claims.
“Any and all investigative decisions reside with Mayor Michael Bivens, and he knows that I am transparent and open to any scrutiny. These allegations have been thoroughly vetted in the past to be untrue and misleading,” he wrote.