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HUBBARD -- Township trustees on Tuesday reinstated a former police officer who was fired twice from the department for alleged misconduct.
Trustee William Coletta and Trustee Jason Tedrow voted "yes" to officer
Michael Orr's rehiring, while trustee Rick Hernandez abstained.
The decision will keep the township out of an arbitration process that could have overextended township funds.
Orr's standing with the department has been ongoing "over the last two years," Coletta said in February.
Orr, a Liberty resident, was hired as a patrolman in 2006 and was placed on sick leave after an October 2021 incident at a truck stop.
He was fired in January 2022 when trustees voted unanimously to terminate his employment.
Orr filed a grievance Jan. 19, 2022. An arbitrator overturned the discharge and ordered Orr to be reinstated, according to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court documents.
"He was terminated once, and we lost the arbitration and we were required to bring him back," Trustee Jason Tedrow said in February. "Upon his return, we immediately put him on leave again and then terminated him again, so he never went back on the road at that point."
The township was not able to say how long Orr was on leave after the first arbitration process. A judgment entry from Judge Andrew D. Logan's courtroom suggested that Orr was discharged again April 21, 2023.
"On April 21, 2023, I was informed by Chief (Ron) Fusco to report to the HTPD whereupon at about 11:54 a.m. I received a letter informing me that my employment with HTPD had been terminated," Orr wrote in a second grievance report dated April 24, 2023. "This discipline is without just cause."
REASON FOR REINSTATING
Trustee William Coletta said during the meeting, "After reviewing this information personally, and going over some information on it, and getting some outside opinions, I'm one of the ones who voted to terminate at the beginning, and I feel that was wrong, or unjust, to do at that point in time."
In accordance with the involved attorneys, Coletta continued, the board agreed that the dispute would not be going to arbitration because of the costs involved. Tedrow explained that the cost of arbitration could have exceeded $160,000.
In regard to the evidence, or lack thereof, of Orr's misconduct, and costs involved with litigation, Tedrow added, "I think it's something we should have taken a closer look at during that time's current leadership structure."
He continued, "Each trustee sits over a different entity within the township. At that time it would have actually gone through our police chief, and if there was a misstep there, it would have gone to an overseer from the board of trustees that oversees our police department, and that was Rick at the time."
Hernandez responded that he did not appreciate Tedrow's comments. "That police department was in a broke status. You were not here sir, let alone, one of the reasons why they were broken. We need to pay our property taxes."
He further added, "We brought that department from broke, to over a $2.5 million carryover, and we dropped that into the lap of the new division coordinator in a three-year agreement contract, which the union agreed to."
INCIDENTS
The truck stop incident, which resulted in Orr being placed on leave in October 2021, was in reference to his alleged conduct with a truck driver during a civil matter at Flying J, off North Main Street at Interstate 80.
An officer's body-camera video shows the driver holding onto his driver's license, and Orr trying to get it out of his hands. Orr then touches the truck driver's arm with his handcuffs, the video shows.
Fusco, who was a captain at the time, said an outside agency conducted the investigation. Hernandez said that Orr could be seen in a body-camera video hitting the truck driver with his handcuffs, after yanking the driver's license from the driver's hand.
"The township did have to pay up for that," Hernandez said in February. "Our insurance handled some of that, but it did cost the township. And also, there was another altercation with a female that had been brought to our attention. So those were some incidents that caused that (firing) in the first place."
Another incident was brought to light after a woman filed a complaint with the department about her arrest. The arrest took place before the Flying J incident, and officials did not, at the time, publicly cite the incident as reasoning behind Orr being placed on leave shortly afterward.
On Sept. 10, 2021, Orr arrested the woman, of Sharpsville, Pa., for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct at her mother's residence.
The woman was found sitting in her mother's pickup that was parked in the driveway of the vehicle. She was asked to gather her belongings, a friend was called, and Orr gave her a choice to leave with her friend or be arrested. However, Orr allegedly handcuffed her too tight and she filed a complaint.
Colletta said in February that the second administrative leave was recommended by Fusco following an investigation.