Buckeye Lake, Ohio's Chief of Police preferred to do things the "good 'ole boys" way - the way things have been done for many generations, but a new mayor and city council weren't having any of it so they asked Internal Affairs Officers from a neighboring town's Police Department to look into things in Buckeye Lake, which they did. All roads led to the bumbling, moronic, idiotic and rather lazy Chief of Police for Buckeye Lake.
The following YouTube video is the interrogation of the [former] Buckeye Lake, OH, Police Chief and at times is hysterical but overall is really sad simply because there are thousands of police departments in the United States that are about the same size as Buckeye Lake PD and you have to wonder what is going on in those departments as well. Police Departments of this [very small] size rarely have adequate checks and balances or auditing of any kind making it very easy for theft of all types to run rampant as you'll hear about in the video.
In my general area, we have had two such Police Department (PD) mergers in recent years that gave way to two larger police departments v. six smaller PDs where each little PD had a chief of police and upper police brass. The first merger merged two PDs together; the other merger resulted in a single PD where there were four before. Both new PDs mandated retraining for every single officer regardless of rank (which was badly needed as tickets had actually been written for non-existent traffic laws1 ), including top-brass and the chief himself, and today are highly respected police departments and most important of all in both mergers - the citizens of the six towns are much happier and feel much safer - and crime stats prove it. Also, each of the six towns has realized significant $$ savings to the point where four of them did not need to increase property taxes the following year.
We have tiny little towns around here where I live at the beach in New Jersey that sound very similar to Buckeye Lake -- where you have a chief of police, one or two upper-brass officers, then 2 or 3 regular police officers complemented by a whole host of part-time officers who need to work or volunteer for at least 16 hours per month (EST) working out on the streets to retain their state LEO* certificate which they need to work in the state as a sworn police officer.
_______________________
*LEO = Law Enforcement Officer
1Spoiler --
John
The following YouTube video is the interrogation of the [former] Buckeye Lake, OH, Police Chief and at times is hysterical but overall is really sad simply because there are thousands of police departments in the United States that are about the same size as Buckeye Lake PD and you have to wonder what is going on in those departments as well. Police Departments of this [very small] size rarely have adequate checks and balances or auditing of any kind making it very easy for theft of all types to run rampant as you'll hear about in the video.
In my general area, we have had two such Police Department (PD) mergers in recent years that gave way to two larger police departments v. six smaller PDs where each little PD had a chief of police and upper police brass. The first merger merged two PDs together; the other merger resulted in a single PD where there were four before. Both new PDs mandated retraining for every single officer regardless of rank (which was badly needed as tickets had actually been written for non-existent traffic laws1 ), including top-brass and the chief himself, and today are highly respected police departments and most important of all in both mergers - the citizens of the six towns are much happier and feel much safer - and crime stats prove it. Also, each of the six towns has realized significant $$ savings to the point where four of them did not need to increase property taxes the following year.
We have tiny little towns around here where I live at the beach in New Jersey that sound very similar to Buckeye Lake -- where you have a chief of police, one or two upper-brass officers, then 2 or 3 regular police officers complemented by a whole host of part-time officers who need to work or volunteer for at least 16 hours per month (EST) working out on the streets to retain their state LEO* certificate which they need to work in the state as a sworn police officer.
_______________________
*LEO = Law Enforcement Officer
1Spoiler --
I was pulled over one night in Southern NJ after making a right turn on red. Prior to my right turn onto NJ73N, I did notice a car in the left-turn lane on the other side of the street with its left blinker on intending to also turn onto NJ73N. I came to a complete stop; the other car was also stopped. I could see that the Northbound and Southbound traffic had a green light - only because it was dark out. These green lights are not visible during daytime because you are viewing the sides of the traffic lights.
I made my right turn on red, began to accelerate and within 1 mile, a cop was behind me with red/blue lights activated, so I pulled over to the shoulder of the 4-lane road, then into the safety of a parking lot; came to a complete stop; opened all windows; turned on all interior lights (my windows are 87% black-tinted - you absolutely cannot see into the car at night if the windows are up); placed both hands out of the driver's window so the cop could see that I had no weapons. Doing all of this at 2 am on a deserted roadway is a huge relief to the cop(s) for obvious safety reasons.
I asked the cop why I was pulled over. He replied "You cannot make a right turn on red when the left turn lane on the other side of the road has a green left-turn arrow indicating "go" for the left turn [onto NJ73N]". I actually laughed because what the cop just said was undoubtedly among the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life. The cop however was not laughing. I said "you're not serious... that is ridiculous". The cop replied "we'll see how ridiculous it is when you get the ticket". I then asked "I know motor vehicle statutes fall under New Jersey DMV Title 39 Laws -- what is the section under Title 39 for this alleged traffic infraction?" (It would look something like this - 39:3-76.2f = no seatbelt, one which I have received over 100 times. I highly dislike seatbelts.)
The cop would not answer me and tell me the 39 statute. I finally had enough and said "get a supervisor here, NOW!. We need a cop here that knows what the hell he is doing as you have now failed miserably at your job. How the hell am I supposed to know if or when you have a green left-turn arrow when you're on the opposite side of the street looking up at a traffic light that I cannot see? Furthermore, there is no indication of or an indicator telling me that you have a green arrow. I have never heard of such an asinine law and think that you pulled me over because it's 2 am and you're either bored or outright incompetent or perhaps thought I would be stupid or brainless enough to give you a free pass and allow you to search my car without probable cause or search warrant. Never happen. You people must be dealing with total morons lately because it is rubbing off onto you." And on and on it went until a sergeant appeared on scene and after briefly hearing from the cop, looked at me with rather wide eyes, looked back at the cop and said in a very low tone: "cut him loose now... there is no such law; this whole stop is bad". I said "THANK YOU, HAVE A GOOD NIGHT" and left, never bothering to file a complaint. What would the point have been? I had no dashcam at the time.
I made my right turn on red, began to accelerate and within 1 mile, a cop was behind me with red/blue lights activated, so I pulled over to the shoulder of the 4-lane road, then into the safety of a parking lot; came to a complete stop; opened all windows; turned on all interior lights (my windows are 87% black-tinted - you absolutely cannot see into the car at night if the windows are up); placed both hands out of the driver's window so the cop could see that I had no weapons. Doing all of this at 2 am on a deserted roadway is a huge relief to the cop(s) for obvious safety reasons.
I asked the cop why I was pulled over. He replied "You cannot make a right turn on red when the left turn lane on the other side of the road has a green left-turn arrow indicating "go" for the left turn [onto NJ73N]". I actually laughed because what the cop just said was undoubtedly among the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life. The cop however was not laughing. I said "you're not serious... that is ridiculous". The cop replied "we'll see how ridiculous it is when you get the ticket". I then asked "I know motor vehicle statutes fall under New Jersey DMV Title 39 Laws -- what is the section under Title 39 for this alleged traffic infraction?" (It would look something like this - 39:3-76.2f = no seatbelt, one which I have received over 100 times. I highly dislike seatbelts.)
The cop would not answer me and tell me the 39 statute. I finally had enough and said "get a supervisor here, NOW!. We need a cop here that knows what the hell he is doing as you have now failed miserably at your job. How the hell am I supposed to know if or when you have a green left-turn arrow when you're on the opposite side of the street looking up at a traffic light that I cannot see? Furthermore, there is no indication of or an indicator telling me that you have a green arrow. I have never heard of such an asinine law and think that you pulled me over because it's 2 am and you're either bored or outright incompetent or perhaps thought I would be stupid or brainless enough to give you a free pass and allow you to search my car without probable cause or search warrant. Never happen. You people must be dealing with total morons lately because it is rubbing off onto you." And on and on it went until a sergeant appeared on scene and after briefly hearing from the cop, looked at me with rather wide eyes, looked back at the cop and said in a very low tone: "cut him loose now... there is no such law; this whole stop is bad". I said "THANK YOU, HAVE A GOOD NIGHT" and left, never bothering to file a complaint. What would the point have been? I had no dashcam at the time.
John