WHITEHALL, Ohio (WCMH) – Under Mike Crispen’s leadership as Whitehall's police chief, crime went down 47% in the last three years yet 39 officers have left the division, citing a "toxic" work environment.
These departures – as well as several publicized terminations – have led to requests for an investigation into the division that serves the Columbus East Side enclave of 20,000 residents. But a recent city council ordinance to investigate the division was voted down after councilmembers said it was unnecessary. NBC4 spoke with four current and former officers, who related their own experiences and provided testimonies from others afraid to come forward, and with Crispen.
Among them was a lengthy interview with a current officer who asked to remaining anonymous due to fear of retaliation.
“You want officers that are happy, confident in their decisions, want to be there to help – you name it,” the current officer said. “And he has created this place where the second you drive into work, you are anxious, you are depressed. It’s like a funeral when you’re getting dressed for work.”
“I think it's about the citizens, and they think it's about the police. That's the only difference,” Crispen said.
The division was thrust into the spotlight in summer 2024 when Officer Enrique Ortega presented an anonymous survey to Mayor Michael Bivens reporting low morale and stressful work environments among union officers. He was fired shortly after, although the termination was rescinded in February. Several months later, Officer Brooke Cano, who also worked on collecting the survey results, was fired for allegedly falsifying information.
“From what I'm hearing, morale is pretty well dead,” Ortega said. “Everybody shows up, nobody says anything. They do their job, and then they leave.”
Crispen maintains that the terminations had nothing to do with the survey. He and Bivens have said for months they doubted the findings, but current and former Whitehall officers told NBC4 they were accurate.
“He doesn’t want police officers that are able to make decisions. He just wants a robot that does the exact same thing every time,” the current officer said. “He’s taken discretion out of policing for us, which really affects people more than you think.”
But Crispen defended his style.
“I don’t suffer a lot of the whining stuff when you get paid very well, so I probably do come across a little bit as being, ‘Listen, you got to do your job,’” Crispen said. “Maybe I come across as that grandfather yelling at somebody, and I don't even yell at anybody.”
Officers said they were concerned about being reprimanded, and the current officer said people who are in trouble are sometimes threatened with criminal charges. Crispen said he has had zero reprimands in his time at the station and that lieutenants speak with officers when needed.
Crispen said in eight years there have been 104 internal investigations, 579 reviews of use of force and just 15 suspensions, terminations or "last-chance agreements," the term for 30-month probationary periods. He presented the conditions of all 15 significant disciplines to NBC4, speaking of failures to report child abuse, falsifying police reports and lying to superiors.
“These folks go back and they tell their version of the story because they need to save face, and that becomes the actual truth,” Crispen said. “But this is the actual truth.”
“There's no consistency," the current officer said. "So you can do something very minor, and before you know it, you're on days off without pay, you're in an internal investigation, and then they hit you with like, three different policy violations."
Multiple officers said low morale stemmed from worries of discipline and pressure to work harder. The division has been accused by the local police union of implementing ticket quotas, something Crispen denies. The current officer said this does not refer to a set number but that those who hit numbers in the bottom 20% get reprimanded. Officers said they were frustrated by this pressure. One said a lot of their work could not be quantified, asking how hours spent on a mental health check or consoling a victim could be measured.
“It’s concerning because the citizens I don’t think realize how far the patrolmen have been pushed to make arrests on every violation they see," the current officer said. "A lot of the officers don’t want to be doing it."
Crispen said they don’t quantify helping victims or chatting with residents and recognize that they are important parts of the job. He said friendly neighborhood police work was good, but it shouldn't be the sole focus.
“We expect a lot out of our folks, and we expect it because the citizens pay well for them, and they deserve it, and that's how you protect them," Crispen said.
There are many practices at Whitehall that officers and leadership see differently. Crispen said he requires all officers to learn the Constitution, but the current officer said it was so they knew how far they could push the law. Crispen said many of the complaints came from officers who would rather be on their phone in a parking lot. The current officer said officers were reprimanded if they ate lunch together.
Officers said another practice that brought down morale included check-ins every 20 minutes. One officer said they've been told they should be on call or have a car pulled over every 20 minutes if they are not processing an arrest. Crispen said the check-ins were for officer safety. Crispen and the officers who spoke with NBC4 said there were expectations to work hard and be proactive.
“We didn't swear that we would protect the rights to life, liberty and property under the caveat that they don't hurt our feelings,” Crispen said. “That's not what we do. We get out there and we hold people accountable and we keep you safe.”
The officers alleged a lot of it was unnecessary. One former officer wrote a letter explaining two instances where sergeants used their authority in ways that the officer thought were unethical, including targeting the homeless, mentally ill and people suffering from substance abuse disorders in arrests. The current officer said they have been encouraged by supervisors to cite people who may not be able to afford to pay a ticket, so that failure to pay can produce a warrant and lead to a larger offense.
“A lot of the crime we have is minor offenses. To be honest, people don’t need arrested doing half the stuff we arrested them for,” the current officer said. “We can go back to marijuana, recently legalized, but before that, people were so anxious about getting arrests – because they’re pushed to make arrests – that they were arresting people for like, ashes. Like, no marijuana in the car, but maybe they smoked it and there were ashes in the tray.”
Crispen said, “(It's) an area that can be violent at times, and we've done a pretty good job, our officers have and our supervisors, at keeping it pushed back, but you can't do that a little bit and then just stop. It has to be a nonstop progression, and keep pushing and keep working and keep pushing.”
One former officer provided a list of former employees with reasons why they left the division, which NBC4 compared with city records. Of the 65 employees who have left since Crispen took over in September 2016, former employees confirmed at least 41 of them left due to the culture, including all but four of the sworn officers who have resigned, retired or been fired.
Among those who left, many of them passed on the Delayed Retirement Option Plan, or they left DROP early. DROP keeps experienced officers past their 25 year retirement eligibility, and a former officer said it has an approximate value of nearly $750,000 for those who remain through the eight permitted DROP years. A former officer said 13 of the 14 sworn officers who retired since 2016 voided at least some of their DROP benefits.
“People who were here when I got hired, probably a handful of them have left without retiring, but transferred to another agency. A few of them were absolutely told by me, ‘You're either going to have to get on our plan or you're going to have to find another place to work,’” Crispen said. “I’m not saying the way you do policing is wrong, it just doesn’t work here. You can’t keep the community safe.”
“I think you need to look at what is going on with the leadership,” Ortega said. “A lieutenant took a job in Worthington as a patrolman to get out of there. A sergeant left for another for a smaller city or a village to be a chief of police for roughly the same amount of money. Why are people leaving? Officers are leaving, retiring early and leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars to just get out.”
The current officer said patrolmen still want an investigation to get some resolution. City officials have maintained it is unnecessary, and one citizen voiced concerns about the cost of an investigation at a city council meeting in December. The police union offered to cover half of any associated costs.
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