Patrol withholding public records from Dispatch, family in prison officer's fatal shooting
Jordan LairdTwo weeks after an Ohio prison lieutenant was fatally shot during a training session, the Ohio State Highway Patrol continues to deny The Dispatch's requests for records that should be public per Ohio court precedent.
The patrol released a heavily redacted incident report Monday that revealed little except that investigators are considering a reckless homicide charge against another prison system employee in the April 9 death of Lt. Rodney Osborne, 43, at the firing range at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's Correctional Training Facility in Orient, Pickaway County.
Osborne worked on special operations teams and at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.
The Dispatch has asked the highway patrol, which investigates incidents on state property, for the full incident report, including initial findings and witness statements. The patrol provided a report filled with blacked-out text, including witness names but not their accounts of what they saw.
Jack Greiner, an attorney representing The Dispatch, said the patrol should produce the full records.
"When a law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty, as was the case here, the public has a right to know the circumstances surrounding that tragic event," Greiner said. "This is a time for enhanced transparency, not limited transparency."
While Ohio law allows law enforcement to withhold some investigatory records while an investigation is ongoing, that does not apply to initial reports and witness statements based on Ohio court precedent, according to Greiner.
In June 2022, in a 5-2 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in Myers v. Meyers that upon request, law enforcement agencies must release witness statements and initial observations by officers. This came out of a lawsuit filed by Derek Myers, operator of the website the Scioto Valley Guardian, against Chillicothe Police Chief Ron Meyers after his department denied Myers' request for an incident report in 2020.
The court said in its decision that "officers’ reports that contain their observations at the time they are responding to an incident, along with initial witness statements taken at the time of the incident or immediately thereafter, are incident-report information that is a public record and may not be withheld from disclosure as 'specific investigatory work product.'"
Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Ray Santiago told The Dispatch the agency has followed the law.
"The Patrol has reviewed, redacted and released this report in accordance to the Ohio’s Public Records Act," Santiago said in an email.
Prisons department has not released personnel file for commander placed on leave
The patrol also redacted the name of the suspect in the report it released. However, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said Monday that David Pearson, a special operations commander, was placed on administrative leave on April 10 while the shooting is investigated.
Also on April 10, The Dispatch asked the ODRC for Pearson's personnel file, but the department has not produced it. The department has released Osborne's personnel file. Most governments release personnel files within a few business days of a request.
Rodney Osborne's family wants answers
Candus (Woodruff) Mitchell, Osborne's sister, told The Dispatch that her family wants answers.
"Why are they covering up for this guy (the suspect)?" Mitchell said. "We want information, and we demand it … Why would they put somebody’s family through not knowing? Jesus, it is so horrible."
Keithe Mitchell, her husband and Osborne's brother-in-law, said family, friends and Osborne's fellow corrections officers deserve to know what happened.