Promotion to captain triggers public response

A Warren police sergeant was also promoted Monday.

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — Safety-Service Director Doug Franklin, after receiving additional legal advice, has promoted Joseph Marhulik, who admitted uttering racial slurs in August, to captain of the Warren Police Department.

Franklin said he gave the oath of office to Marhulik on Monday in the Warren Police Department. The promotion is effective immediately.

That triggered a response from the Rev. Alton Merrell Sr. of New Jerusalem Fellowship, who said he is disappointed in the decision and believes it makes it difficult for Marhulik to lead other members of the department.

“This is not personal,” the Rev Mr. Merrell said. “It’s what you represent. As a captain in the police department, we [in the black community] already feel slighted in a lot of ways. [Promoting Marhulik] is like adding insult to injury.”

Merrell said he was speaking for himself only, but he is also a member of the Trumbull County Interdenominational Alliance, a group of about 40 ministers from throughout the county, most of whom are black. The group recently spoke out against Marhulik’s promotion.

Franklin asked the Warren Civil Service Commission in the fall for the next name on its list to fill the vacancy created by the promotion of Tim Bowers to police chief.

But after Marhulik had been certified as the next captain, complaints about the promotion began to emerge, and Franklin asked the civil service commission to rule Marhulik ineligible.

The Civil Service Commission, upon the advice of the Warren Law Department, said it could not reverse itself once it had certified Marhulik to the job.

Franklin, asking for advice from that same law department, said he was first advised that the civil service commission could hold up the promotion and within the last few days was advised it could not, Franklin said.

“I’ve pretty much exhausted all legal remedies and options and have to uphold the oath of my office to obey the law,” Franklin said.

Marhulik admitted to calling two black men on bicycles a derogatory term for a black person while off duty but in his unmarked police car in August. It was the same night a security guard at a low-income apartment complex where Marhulik supervises police officers called police, saying Marhulik was behaving in a way that suggested he was intoxicated while wearing a sidearm.

Marhulik took about a month off with pay after the incident. Later, Bowers suspended him without pay for two weeks for his actions. He paid the suspension with vacation pay.

Also Monday, Franklin gave the oath of office to Martin Gargas, who was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant to replace Marhulik. No patrolman was promoted to sergeant to replace Gargas, Franklin said.

Last week, Patrolman Joseph Kistler sued the city and the Warren Civil Service Commission, seeking a writ of mandamus from the 11th District Court of Appeals to compel the city to make the promotion.

Kistler is the next person in line on the civil service list to be sergeant, but the city has attempted to reduce the number of sergeants within the department since it reduced its number of patrolman by 20 on Jan. 1, 2009.

The department now has 23 sergeants, lieutenants and captains supervising 37 patrol officers.

runyan@vindy.com