Earlier this week, the Guardian broke a story that rocked a community: a 6-year-old girl had been molested while riding her school bus by an 18-year-old.
Many people asked: why did it take three weeks for the community to learn about the sexual assault, especially since it happened at school?
Parents have a right to be outraged at Union-Scioto school officials for their lack of acknowledgment to this issue.
But the County Sheriff should not go unscathed.
While Ross County Sheriff George Lavender’s office appears to be conducting a criminal investigation into the case, and while the Guardian understands that sensitive investigations can take time, why does the Sheriff have to mislead the public?
The reason it took the Guardian three weeks to publish the Union-Scioto report was because it took three weeks for us to receive it from the Sheriff. That is unacceptable.
Public record laws in Ohio are designed for the people. Police reports are public record the moment they are typed and reviewed, even if it’s only a draft. Laws say that reports should be released immediately and without delay.
The county Prosecutor is the legal counsel to the Sheriff. And, for the most part, the Guardian seems to agree with Prosecutor Jeff Marks when it comes to public record laws. In fact, this publication issued the Prosecutor an award this month for his efforts toward transparency and public records.
But the Sheriff skirts the edge with public records and he misleads the public despite his lawyer telling him to simply handover the files.
When the Union-Scioto sexual assault was reported to the Sheriff on August 31, the Guardian requested the report the next day. It took the news three weeks to receive the report despite numerous follow up requests asking why it was taking so long. It wasn’t just the sexual assault report; there were minor car accident reports that also took three weeks.
One could say the person who handles the requests was sick or busy with training; we could accept that answer if it was not the standard operating procedure of the Sheriff to wait 2-and-3 weeks to send reports.
This publication has a pending lawsuit against the Chillicothe Police Department for their refusal to disclose reports in their entirety, but much to CPD’s credit, they almost-always send reports within a day-or-two, as they should.
Sheriff George Lavender told a citizen that his office did not delay three weeks to release the Union-Scioto report.
The statement from the Sheriff is misleading to the public.
While the Sheriff is correct: the media logs go out each day automatically through a computer-generated system, the entire report with details are not included.
When the Union-Scioto report was requested after the Guardian saw it in the media logs, it took the Sheriff three weeks to hand it over, despite numerous follow up requests.
The Guardian asked on September 15, 20, and 21 the status of the requests we had submitted, including ones for minor accidents, with no reply. Finally, three weeks after the initial request, we received the report and we were able to inform the public.
The Guardian understands and respects criminal investigations, especially sensitive ones. Some information should be withheld, and we don’t refute that, but the initial report is not exempt from disclosure as part of that investigation; something the Prosecutor has told the Sheriff and Police repeatedly.
The public deserves answers as to why it took three weeks to release incident reports, especially when hundreds of families were impacted, and the public deserves answers as to why it’s standard operating procedure to withhold public records for weeks.
More importantly, the public deserves answers as to why the Sheriff — who is the chief law enforcement officer — is misleading the public.
Come on, Sheriff. It’s time to man up, George.
