LORAIN, Ohio — An Ohio police officer has been fired for abusing his authority by detaining his daughter and her black boyfriend, while a legitimate call for help went unanswered, police officials said.
John Kovach Jr., who is white, was fired May 11 after an internal investigation determined he had violated multiple sections of the Lorain Police Department's standards of conduct, as well as the department's policy and procedures, the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram reported.
Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will is also reviewing the case to determine if Kovach will face criminal charges.
"These actions are not acceptable for members of our police department and we felt it warranted immediate dismissal," Dan Given, safety-service director for the city of Lorain, told the newspaper.
Lorain, a city of just under 65,000 people, is about 30 miles west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.
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Dashboard camera footage shows the April 16 traffic stop that Kovach conducted on Makai Coleman, the 18-year-old dating Kovach's daughter, Katlyn Kovach. She is also 18 years old, the Chronicle-Telegram reported.
Kovach, a 26-year veteran officer, tells Coleman to get out of the car because he's "going to jail," according to the video, which was obtained by the Chronicle-Telegram.
Coleman asks the police officer why he is being arrested.
“Have a seat in my car,” Kovach responds. “We’ll make (expletive) up as we go.”
Watch the dashcam recording from Kovach’s patrol car below. WARNING: The video contains some graphic language.
Once Coleman is in the police cruiser, one of the passengers gets out of the stopped vehicle.
“Did I tell you to get out of the car?” Kovach asks.
Off camera, but while still being recorded, Kovach approaches a woman who lives nearby, who the Chronicle-Telegram identified as Gloria Morales. Morales' children were two of the passengers in Coleman's car.
Unbeknownst to Kovach, his daughter is the third passenger.
“My daughter in there?” Kovach is heard asking Morales, who tells him the girl isn’t in her home. “Why is her computer there?”
Morales offers to let him check inside the house for his daughter.
Kovach doesn’t believe her.
"If I check and you're lying to me, you're going to jail," Kovach tells Morales.
As he and Morales argue, Kovach tells her “that boy” was harboring his daughter, who he heard was suicidal. He then tells Morales her daughter will get a $300 ticket for failure to wear a seat belt.
Morales tells Kovach to come back with a search warrant if he wants to enter her home.
“That’s fine. I will,” he responds.
After a brief silence, he is heard off camera telling Morales’ daughter she is getting a ticket.
“I had my seat belt on,” the girl says.
“No, you didn’t,” he says. “You can go to court, then.”
Morales steps into the camera frame, telling Kovach that she and her children will tell the judge about his behavior when they fight the ticket.
Kovach accuses her of being disorderly.
"How am I being disorderly?" Morales asks. "You're making this personal. You want to ticket my daughter because you think your daughter is in my house."
As the argument continues, Morales accuses Kovach of using department time and resources to look for his daughter. She tells Kovach she is calling 911 to report him.
"Call 911, you're going to jail," Kovach tells her.
The angry officer tells Morales’ children to go inside with their mother. It is at that point that he spots his own daughter sitting in the back seat of Coleman’s car.
“I didn’t even see you. Get out of the car. Get in my car,” he tells his daughter.
He opens the rear door of the patrol car.
“Goodbye,” he tells Coleman repeatedly as he orders his daughter into the cruiser.
“You can’t take me. I’m 18,” Katlyn Kovach tells her father.
Coleman tells the girl she can get back in his car with him, but John Kovach tells her, “No, you are not.”
"Why are you taking me?" an increasingly panicked-sounding Katlyn Kovach asks her father. "Why are you taking me? You have to give me a reason, by law."
She begins screaming and crying as her father pushes her into the back seat of the patrol car.
Coleman, who initially walked back to his car, returns and asks John Kovach why he is taking his daughter.
“Why are you putting her in the car?” Coleman asks.
“She was suicidal yesterday,” the officer responds.
“I was not,” Katlyn Kovach responds. “You weren’t even with me yesterday.”
The argument continues for a few moments, at which point John Kovach says his daughter is going to the hospital. The camera footage eventually shows the patrol car driving away, Katlyn Kovach still in the back seat.
While the argument with his daughter was going on, a call came in for a road rage incident elsewhere in the city. The dashboard footage shows that Kovach, who was nearby, ignored the call.
The Chronicle-Telegram reported that documents from the internal investigation indicate Kovach lied multiple times to the detectives conducting the internal investigation, which was prompted after Morales called 911.
Kovach told internal investigators that he pulled Coleman’s car over after spotting him driving at a high rate of speed. He also claimed the car almost struck his patrol vehicle, the newspaper reported.
The dashboard footage shows Coleman driving at a normal rate of speed into the Morales family’s neighborhood. It also shows that Kovach did not inform dispatchers before initiating the traffic stop.
The Chronicle-Telegram reported that Kovach, when questioned about the missed road rage call, told investigators that he called the officer at that scene after receiving the dispatch information and learned he was not needed. Lt. Ed Super, one of the men conducting the internal investigation, pointed out that the dashcam footage does not substantiate Kovach's claim.
Lt. Dan Smith wrote in a complaint against Kovach that he talked to both Coleman and Coleman’s mother about the incident. According to the documents, the teen told the lieutenant that Kovach called him the week before the traffic stop and threatened to take out warrants against him.
Kovach also threatened to go to Coleman's U.S. Army recruiter and stop the teen's enlistment, Coleman told Smith. According to his Facebook page, Coleman started basic training in May.
Smith wrote that Kovach told him he didn't think Coleman was a good person because he had previously been arrested on a marijuana charge, the newspaper reported. The officer said his daughter was staying with Coleman against her parents' wishes.
Kovach also claimed that his ex-wife told him she had seen a Facebook post on Coleman’s page in which the teen said he was going to pimp out their daughter to make money. The ex-wife later told investigators she had no idea what Kovach was talking about.
The girl's mother did say, however, that she believed Kovach was trying to be a good father. She did "not want him to lose everything," and said that she and her ex-husband did have concerns about their daughter's relationship, the documents said.
Kovach was placed on leave less than four hours after the traffic stop, the Chronicle-Telegram reported. He was ultimately disciplined for initiating the traffic stop without cause, for threatening to arrest Morales and for placing Coleman in custody and saying he would make up charges against him.
Kovach was also disciplined for failing to back up the other officer at the road rage incident, the newspaper reported.
He is appealing his firing. Kyle Gelenius, president of the Lorain Fraternal Order of Police, said in a statement Friday that Kovach is appealing through the grievance process.
@FOPLodge3 President’s Statement on the Officer John Kovach termination: pic.twitter.com/F4eGFyUh8S
— LorainFOPPrez (@LorainFOPPrez) June 22, 2018
Gelenius said that the appeal is based not on claims that Kovach’s behavior was appropriate, but on violations of the union’s standing contract that allegedly took place during the disciplinary process. He said union officials are “just as disturbed as anyone else” by what Kovach did.
"Clearly, he acted outside of the purview of his duties as an officer of the law, which our city administration recognized and felt warranted termination," Gelenius said in the statement. "We are equally concerned about the rights of our citizens to whom we are sworn to serve and protect. We do not condone nor praise John Kovach's actions in this matter."
It is still the union’s job to offer Kovach fair and neutral representation through the disciplinary and appeals process, Gelenius said.
“That is why we stated HE is looking forward to presenting his side to a neutral arbitrator,” Gelenius said.
The arbitration hearing is scheduled for September, the Chronicle-Telegram reported.
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