North College Hill police chief, command staff led by hate and intimidation, abused payroll and crime databases: officer complaints (2024)

Published: Apr. 17, 2024 at 11:48 AM EDT|Updated: Apr. 18, 2024 at 5:31 AM EDT

NORTH COLLEGE HILL, Ohio (WXIX) - North College Hill’s police chief, Ryan Schrand, and a veteran lieutenant, Frank Petrocelli, have been on paid administrative leave for weeks in light of hostile work environment complaints from other officers.

Now, we are getting a detailed look at what all the officers, retired and current ones, allege in their complaints.

Mayor Tracie Nichols released copies in response to repeated public record requests.

“The incidents over the past few weeks with all the talk of corruption, and the work environment and culture that has been created under Chief Schrand’s leadership and mirrored by his command staff, of hate, fear and intimidation is heartbreaking to me,” wrote retired Officer Jay Manning who has spoken with the State Auditor’s Office as they investigate whether public money has been misused.

His complaint and the others allege these examples of “work life” under Chief Schrand and his command staff:

• Consistent abuse of payroll violations
• Flagrant policy, procedure, union and “Ohio Revised Code violations”
• Screaming, threatening, intimidation, degrading, open embarrassing of officers, vindictiveness
• Unfair and unequal application of policies
• Open discussion of personnel issues regarding officers with clerks, other officers “or whoever just happened to be present in the station at the time.”
• Violations of Regional Crime Information Center (RCIC) and LEADS/National Crime Information Center (NCIC)

Chief Schand is accused of favoring Lt. Petrocelli in particular and ignoring repeated and multiple concerns raised by officers about it despite complaining privately to at least one officer about Petrocelli’s lack of job performance.

Lt. Petrocelli is accused in these complaints of sleeping during staff meetings and ordering an officer twice to issue citations in order to generate revenue for the mayor’s court “when I found it to be unethical and against the principles of fair policing,” wrote Douglas Rush.

It’s also widely suspected within the department that Petrocelli has been allegedly “cheating” on his timesheet, according to a complaint passed along to the State Auditor’s Office last summer by North College Hill City Councilwoman Mary Jo Zorb.

That was the initial complaint of what remains an ongoing investigation by the auditor’s Special Investigations Unit into whether public money has been misused in this western Hamilton County city of just under 10,000 residents.

It’s not clear who locally is looking into the officers’ complaints about Chief Schrand and members of his command staff or how much longer the chief and Lt. Petrocelli will be on leave.

The city’s law director, William Deters, said last month an independent human resources firm would do it, but then the company backed out.

At last check, Deters told FOX19 NOW he planned to hire an outside law firm to do it.

It’s not clear if that review is underway or how much it could cost taxpayers.

“I am looking forward to the city being able to find someone to do a fair and impartial investigation to clear my name so I can get back to work,” Lt. Petrocelli said in a statement Wednesday to FOX19 NOW.

He has refuted allegations of timesheet “cheating” in a previous interview.

“I didn’t do any of that stuff,” Petrocelli told FOX19 NOW on March 5.

“The allegations were made, I heard that. They are looking into it. They are not going to find anything. This is going to be unfounded because I didn’t do that stuff. It is what it is. I don’t know where they are coming from or what information they have.”

FOX19 NOW also reached out Wednesday to Chief Schrand, the law director and Mayor Nichols but did not hear back.

While many of the allegations raised in the complaints warrant concern, one that could have dire implications involves the police department’s use of two law enforcement databases.

Lt. Petrocelli was “flagged for having over 700 entries that were not documented properly,” Manning’s complaint states.

“The use of (LEADS) requires the user to enter the reason for the use of the system with this not being done. I was told by the auditor that this needs to be corrected or we stand a chance of having our LEADS III access taken from us. I notified the employees that were flagged for this and they refused to complete the task, Chief Schrand backed their denial.

“Further, there were 5 policies that were mandated by LEADS to be in our user access policy in our manual. I wrote the policies, gave them to Chief Schrand to enter into the manual and he refused, stating that he was the Chief and no one dictates our policies to him. I attempted to negotiate the potential outcomes to this and he became angry, and again, fell back on he was the chief. He literally took the policies that I had written under the direction of the RCIC authority and threw them into the trash. Most of the RCIC/NCIC violations were Detective Brown’s and Chief Schrand’s. Their unwillingness to correct their errors resulted in the city of NCH being sanctioned,” Manning wrote.

“There were multiple times where he told my peers he was going to ‘kick my a-- and he was ‘going to stick his foot up my a--.’ He further stated to numerous members that he is looking forward to the time ‘he could take my badge, gun and job.’”

Manning said he chose to work for the North College Hill Police Department when he was hired more than 20 years ago because “there was a culture of family and support for every member from within.

“In a few short years,” he wrote in his complaint, “this has gone to every employee being afraid to do anything, including their jobs.”

Manning retired last year because the threats and harassment rose to a daily level “that I could no longer handle. I did speak with an attorney at length stating these issues and he fell pursuing this matter there was a potential state violation as well as a federal civil rights violation for age discrimination. Filing these complaints would be against what I stand for, and the appreciation for my employment and the opportunities it created for me.”

Manning, who is now working for another area law enforcement agency, declined to comment Wednesday on his complaint, saying it speaks for itself.

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