WHITEHALL, Ohio ( WCMH ) – Whitehall Police Chief Mike Crispen gave a presentation at a city council meeting addressing the lingering allegations against the department.
In a roughly 45-minute presentation on Sept. 17, Crispen addressed complaints against him, the city and the department, including allegations of ticket quotas, low morale and that he fired former officer Enrique Ortega unjustly. Crispen also defended his leadership — with one of the complaints against him being a vote of no confidence in him as a leader — and the department’s initiatives.
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Ortega was the union representative for Whitehall police, and he gave a presentation to Mayor Michael Bivens of an internal survey he conducted. According to Ortega’s presentation, which NBC4 received a copy of, officers said they were overwhelmed, depressed, anxious and angry.
In Ortega’s presentation, he showed a graph of 36 officers’ answers to department morale, of which 66.67% of respondents said morale was “horrible.” Another 22.22% said morale was below average or poor. Only one respondent said morale was above average. Crispen disagreed with these findings.