Warren cop faces administrative charges

By Ed Runyan | May 16, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Warren Patrolman Jeff Hoolihan

WARREN

Capt. Tim Roberts, commander of the emergency-services division of the Warren Police Department, has charged Patrolman Jeff Hoolihan administratively with violating five parts of the department’s code of conduct for contacting a news reporter and telling her about a criminal investigation.

Hoolihan violated rules regarding release of information to the public, release of confidential information and release of information regarding an investigation, Roberts said in a memo last week to Police Chief Tim Bowers.

Punishment for the violations will be determined later, after a review by Bowers.

The administrative charges followed an internal-affairs investigation that found that Hoolihan violated departmental policy by giving the interview.

Internal-affairs Officer Jeff Cole found that Hoolihan’s stated reason for releasing the information — the need to “blow the whistle” on a “cover-up” of alleged criminal wrongdoing by a city wastewater worker — did not allow him to violate departmental rules.

Hoolihan said he released the information because he had participated in an investigation in 2008 that showed that a worker had pornographic images on his city-owned computer, but city officials failed to act on the information.

Hoolihan cited the state whistleblower statute as justification for releasing the information, but Cole said the whistleblower statute does not allow a police officer to release information to a news reporter.

Hoolihan also received a written reprimand a year ago for violating the police department’s use-of-force policy by ordering brothers 7, 9 and 10 to the ground at gunpoint in March 2009 in their backyard.

Hoolihan said he thought the boys were committing a breaking-and-entering at the time he spotted them “running, stumped down, trying to avoid detection.”

The incident also resulted in a lawsuit being filed by the boys’ parents.