COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state watchdog has found no evidence of cover-up by state police for not immediately ticketing two law enforcement officers who were clocked motorcycling at speeds of nearly 150 mph on a highway last month.
State Inspector General Tom Charles did fault the patrol, however, for "acts of omission" in failing to cite the officers at the scene or throughout the ensuing evening.
Christopher Thomas, a police officer in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, was clocked June 28 going 149 mph on Interstate 70 east of Columbus. The speed limit is 65 mph. Thomas has pleaded guilty to speeding and publicly apologized.
Off-duty state trooper Jason Highsmith also was ticketed and has pleaded not guilty to speeding. He was clocked at 147 mph.
Highsmith didn't receive his ticket until July 2, and Thomas' was issued July 6, raising questions about a possible cover-up.
Charles scolded the patrol for inaction up and down the chain of command on the day of the incident. Investigators found the delays resulted from intensive internal discussions and consultations, not an attempt to hide the facts or protect the motorcyclists.
"(I)t appears to us that the entire delay in issuing the citations came as the result of both a failure by individuals to perform their statutory obligations and by over-analysis of the situation," the report said.
Four separate supervisors referred the incident to a superior officer before a decision was finally made, the report said. A pair of union contracts were then scrutinized to determine whether management could compel the arresting officers to issue the tickets after the fact.
Under their labor agreement, troopers are protected from being forced to arrest anyone against their better judgment. However, the report notes that an arrest is different from a traffic ticket.
Charles' investigation, ordered by Gov. Ted Strickland after the incident gained public attention, dismissed any notion that intensive media attention prompted the patrol to handle the ticketing process differently. The report noted that the first media story, in the local Newark Advocate, appeared three days after the tickets were filed in court.
The two troopers who pulled Thomas and Highsmith over could have prevented the controversy by simply ticketing the drivers at the scene, the report said.
"The speeds were simply too extreme for any reasonable officer to ignore," the report said. "The citations should have been issued at the roadside, just as they were for all the other motorists ticketed that day."
A message seeking comment was left with the patrol.
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