Hundreds of pages of documents and more than 20 hours of video evidence and interviews are included in the investigation.
One video — a 27-minute clip that shows segments of Dent in the lobby — is what Jeanette Sullivan claims is tampered evidence. She filed a complaint that the video submitted as evidence against the sergeants was edited.
“I don’t understand how somebody was going to do this to the badge — spit on the badge and disrespect the badge — and I don’t want that to happen,” Sullivan said.
Three senior Clark County sergeants — Krista Cox, Eric Sullivan and Carrie Taylor — were fired in October for dereliction of duty after investigators said Dent was left alone drunk in the jail lobby for three hours.
Jeanette Sullivan is the wife of Sgt. Eric Sullivan.
The firings came after a five-month internal investigation, culminating in a disciplinary hearing overseen by the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators wrote “CCSO Lobby: 22:05 to 01:03,” indicating the time covered by the video on a CD that was given to Jeanette Sullivan and the Springfield News-Sun as part of a public record request.
“The video (system) in our jail lobby is a little bit dated and it also is motion activated,” said Ben Hunt, the human relations and labor relations director at the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
The cameras only record when they detect movement, he said.
It’s understandable why some might think the video looks suspicious, Hunt said, because items and people appear to jump in and out of the video when the camera system kicks on and off. The time stamp also seems to jump ahead.
“We’re not hiding anything and we’re not tampering with the evidence,” he said. “That is a very serious allegation and the sheriff’s office attempts and succeeds at being very diligent in giving out public records when appropriate.”
Jeanette Sullivan is part a group that calls themselves the TruthSeekers. They don’t believe the sheriff’s office.
“People want answers for that and somebody needs to make them answer,” Jeanette Sullivan said.
The attorney general’s office must go over the accusations in the complaint before it decides if it should move into mediation, said Dan Tierney, a spokesman with the Attorney General’s Office. It could take a month for the complaint to be processed.
The sheriff’s office hadn’t been notified by the state of the complaint as of Monday afternoon, but Hunt said they will comply with whatever decision the AG’s office makes.
“We deny any allegation that we tampered with this or that we’re not giving her the full record of what we have of that night. And we believe that if there is an AG investigation than we will be vindicated in what we’ve done,” Hunt said.
All three sergeants have appealed their firings.
Representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police Ohio Labor Council, the union representing the sergeants, previously called their firings “unjust” but the union hasn’t returned calls on the status of the arbitration.
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