Stark County Sheriff's Office

Last updated
Stark County Sheriff's Office
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdictionOhio, Stark County, United States
Size575 square miles
Population375,432
Operational structure
Headquarters4500 Atlantic Blvd. N.E., Canton, Ohio 44705
Agency executive
  • George T Maier (since 2014), Sheriff
Website
Stark County Sheriff

The Stark County Sheriff's Office is a law enforcement agency which serves Stark County, Ohio, United States. The county is 575 square miles and has a population of 375,432 and the county seat is Canton, Ohio.

Strip search lawsuits

A local woman, Hope Steffey, sued the Sheriff's Office, claiming that male and female deputies used excessive force and assaulted her when they stripped her naked after she was arrested. Hope Steffey had called the police after she had been assaulted. Television station WKYC obtained video of the incident from Hope Steffey's attorney, shows male and female deputies forcefully removing the clothing of the handcuffed woman, before leaving her to sit naked in a cell for six hours. [1] Police allege that Steffey had threatened to harm herself when asked if she was suicidal, to which she replied in the affirmative. [2] Around November 2008, Hope Steffey initiated civil action against the Sheriff's Office. [3] [4] Stark County agreed to pay Steffey $475,000 in an out-of-court settlement in July 2009. [5] [6] Additional actions against related civilian contractors were later dismissed by the court.

Former Attorney General Marc Dann launched the state investigation into the Steffey case in February 2008 before later resigning for unrelated reasons. A Grand Jury subsequently declined to indict the county deputies involved. [7]

Valentina Dyshko, a Ukrainian woman with limited English capability, filed suit alleging that she was the victim of a strip search by male officers at the Stark County Jail. She had turned herself to Stark County Family Court in response to a misdemeanor warrant; the charge, having to do with home-schooling of her children, was later dismissed. [8] In 2009 the case was settled by the county's insurance carrier for $49,500. [9]

During the Steffey case, it was reported that 128 women had experienced these alleged strip searches, between 1999 and 2007. Privacy concerns prevented the identification of these women which led Steffey's lawyers to use billboards to encourage other women to come forward. [10] Following the billboards and media reporting on the incident, five women, including Valentina Dyshko, came forward to report similar experiences with Stark County Sheriff's personnel. [11] One of these women, "Elizabeth" (a pseudonym), was employed in a medium security jail and reported being accused of suicidal behavior and strip searched after being arrested for defending herself against inappropriate touching by a sheriff deputy during a traffic stop after she changed lanes without signaling. The sheriff accused her of failing a breath test when her asthma prevented her from blowing with sufficient strength. [12] Only one case proceeded out of these five.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canton, Ohio</span> City in Ohio, United States

Canton is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio, United States. It is located approximately 60 miles (97 km) south of Cleveland and 20 miles (32 km) south of Akron in Northeast Ohio on the edge of Ohio's Amish Country. As of the 2020 census, the population of Canton was 70,872, making Canton eighth among Ohio cities in population. It is the largest municipality in the Canton–Massillon metropolitan area, which includes all of Stark and Carroll counties, and was home to 401,574 residents in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Polly Klaas</span> American murder case

Polly Hannah Klaas was an American murder victim whose case garnered national media attention. On October 1, 1993, at age twelve, she was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother's home in Petaluma, California, and was later strangled. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irene Morgan</span> African-American anti-segregation activist

Irene Amos Morgan, later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation. She was traveling on an interstate bus that operated under federal law and regulations. She refused to give up her seat in what the driver said was the "white section". At the time she worked for a defense contractor on the production line for B-26 Marauders.

Autoenucleation, also known as oedipism, is the self-inflicted enucleation (removal) of the eye. It is considered a form of self-mutilation and is normally caused by psychosis, paranoid delusions or drugs. Between 1968 and 2018 there were more than 50 documented cases of "complete or partial self-enucleation in English medical journals". According to a 2012 study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, self-enucleation may be "considered to be the result of psycho-sexual conflicts" even if psychosis is a more likely cause. A particularly extreme form of self-mutilation, autoenucleation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainey Bethea</span> Last American criminal to be publicly executed (c. 1909–1936)

Rainey Bethea, was the last person publicly executed in the United States. Bethea, who confessed to the rape and killing of a 70-year-old woman named Lischia Edwards, was convicted of her rape and publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. Mistakes in performing the hanging, and the surrounding media circus, contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Baca</span> American law enforcement officer

Leroy David Baca is a former American law enforcement officer who served as the 30th Sheriff of Los Angeles County, California from 1998 to 2014. In 2017, he was convicted of felony obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoover High School (Ohio)</span> Public school in North Canton, Ohio, United States

Hoover High School, often referred to as North Canton Hoover, is a public high school in North Canton, Ohio, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacramento County Sheriff's Office</span> Law enforcement agency in California

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office (SSO), is a local law enforcement agency that serves Sacramento County, California. It provides general-service law enforcement to unincorporated areas of Sacramento County, as well as incorporated cities within the county that have contracted with the agency for law-enforcement services. Currently only Rancho Cordova, and Isleton has such a contract with the department since the Citrus Heights and Elk Grove Police Departments assumed all police authority and responsibility for their communities in 2006. It also holds primary jurisdiction over facilities operated by Sacramento County, such as local parks, marinas, and government buildings; provides marshal service for the Sacramento County Superior Court; operates the Sacramento County Jail and the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove; and provides services such as laboratories and academy training to smaller law-enforcement agencies within the county. The county sheriff is currently Jim Cooper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Jessie Davis</span> Murder of American woman in 2007

Jessie Marie Davis was a murdered, near-term pregnant, 26-year-old American woman first reported missing from her home in Lake Township, Stark County, Ohio on June 15, 2007. The case drew an extraordinary response from the American media. On February 15, 2008, Bobby Lee Cutts Jr., a police officer and the father of her 2-year-old son and unborn daughter, was convicted of the aggravated murders of Davis and their unborn child. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 57 years on February 27, 2008. A high-school friend of Cutts, Myisha Lynne Ferrell, was also later charged.

The Jeanine Nicarico murder case was a complex and influential homicide investigation and prosecution in which two men, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, both Latinos, were wrongfully convicted of abduction, rape and murder in 1985 in DuPage County, Illinois. They were both sentenced to death. The case was scrutinized during appeals for being weak in evidence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department</span> Law enforcement agency in California, United States

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States and the fourth largest local police agency in the United States, following the New York Police Department, the Chicago Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department. LASD has approximately 18,000 employees, 9,915 sworn deputies and 9,244 unsworn members. It is sometimes confused with the unrelated Los Angeles Police Department which provides law enforcement service within the city of Los Angeles, which is the county seat of Los Angeles County.

Laurie Smith was the 28th Sheriff of Santa Clara County, California, serving from 1998 until her early retirement in 2022 when under indictment for corruption. She was the first female County Sheriff in the history of the state.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) is a law enforcement agency in Maricopa County, Arizona that was involved in a number of controversies. It is the largest sheriff's office in the state of Arizona and provides general and specialized law enforcement to unincorporated areas of Maricopa County, serving as the primary law enforcement for unincorporated areas of the county as well as incorporated cities within the county which have contracted with the agency for law-enforcement services. It also operates the county jail system. Elected in 2016, Paul Penzone is the current sheriff of Maricopa County. Penzone replaced Joe Arpaio after his 24-year tenure as sheriff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson</span> African-American mother and son who were lynched in the U.S.

Laura and L. D. Nelson were an African-American mother and son who were lynched on May 25, 1911, near Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. They had been seized from their cells in the Okemah county jail the night before by a group of up to 40 white men, reportedly including Charley Guthrie, father of the folk singer Woody Guthrie. The Associated Press reported that Laura was raped. She and L. D. were then hanged from a bridge over the North Canadian River. According to one source, Laura had a baby with her who survived the attack.

Mitrice Lavon Richardson was a 24-year-old African-American woman who went missing on September 17, 2009, after police claim she was released from a jail at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff's Station, where she had been taken after behaving erratically at a restaurant. She was missing for 11 months before being found deceased in August 2010 by park rangers.

The lynching of Marie Thompson of Shepherdsville took place in the early morning on June 15, 1904, in Lebanon Junction, Bullitt County, Kentucky, for her killing of John Irvin, a white landowner. The day before Thompson had attempted to defend her son from being beaten by Irvin in a dispute; he ordered her off the land. As she was walking away from him, he attacked her with a knife and she killed him in self-defense with a razor. She was arrested and put in the county jail.

Natasha McKenna was a 37-year-old African-American woman who died in Fairfax County, Virginia while in police custody. The catalyst event, extraction from her cell and being tasered while shackled, was captured on the video of the Fairfax County jail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Nguyen</span> American journalist and Attorney (born 1976)

Mary H. Nguyen-Nodelman is an American journalist and attorney. The investigative journalist and Emmy nominated reporter has worked at various ABC, NBC and Fox Television stations across the country. Nguyen is also known as the first Asian-American Miss Teenage America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Paige Renkoski</span> Disappeared woman from Michigan

Paige Marie Renkoski was a substitute schoolteacher from Okemos, Michigan who disappeared on May 24, 1990. She was last seen talking to two men on the shoulder of Interstate 96 near Fowlerville, Michigan. Her disappearance is one of Michigan's longest running cold cases. Her vehicle was reported abandoned on I-96, and though the responding officer discovered her car was still running and both her purse and shoes were in the vehicle, the police did not process this as suspicious, but merely had the vehicle towed.

George Brinkman Jr. is an American spree killer who murdered five people during a 2017 killing spree. His first victims were Suzanne Taylor, with whom he had been friends since elementary school, and her two daughters, twenty-one-year-old Taylor Pifer and eighteen-year-old Kylie Pifer. On June 10, 2017, Brinkman took the women captive inside their home in North Royalton, Ohio. He killed Suzanne in front of her daughters before killing them as well. Brinkman then went to the Lake Township, Ohio home of seventy-one-year-old Rogell “Gene” John and his sixty-four-year-old wife Roberta “Bobbi” John. Brinkman, who had known the couple for over ten years, shot them both to death.

References

  1. "Voices - Hope Steffey's 'Abu Ghraib' Treatment at the Stark County Jail". Archived from the original on 2011-01-04. Retrieved 2010-01-04.[ unreliable source? ]
  2. WKYC - Exclusive: Strip search of woman by Sheriff's Deputies called outrageous
  3. [ permanent dead link ]
  4. "Attorneys for woman in strip-search case seek $624,000". Canton Repository. 2009-11-03. Archived from the original on 2022-04-09. Retrieved 2022-04-09.
  5. Hoover, Shane (2009-07-13). "Videos: Stark County, Hope Steffey settle suit over strip-search at jail". Canton Repository. Archived from the original on 2022-04-09. Retrieved 2022-04-09.
  6. "Investigator Exclusive: Money decided in strip-search lawsuit | wkyc.com". Archived from the original on 2014-11-19. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
  7. [ permanent dead link ]
  8. Hoover, Shane (2009-06-04). "Ukrainian woman should get day in court over botched translation at jail". Canton Repository. Archived from the original on 2022-04-09. Retrieved 2022-04-09.
  9. Hoover, Shane (2009-08-26). "Jail inmate settles lawsuit". Canton Repository. Archived from the original on 2022-04-09. Retrieved 2022-04-09.
  10. [ permanent dead link ]
  11. [ permanent dead link ]
  12. [ permanent dead link ]