Police Chief Tonina Lamanna traveled 50 miles from her police station in the small town of Gratis, Ohio, walked into a Cincinnati public school around lunchtime and started asking questions about immigrant students.
After being turned away from three schools on April 15, Lamanna later told the school district’s lawyer that she was doing work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, general counsel Dan Hoying said. ICE confirmed local law enforcement partners were conducting “welfare checks” on children who arrived in the country unaccompanied during President Joe Biden’s administration.
The incident sparked outrage in the district with a school board member calling Lamanna “a puppet of ICE.”
But who is Lamanna?
She became the chief of the Gratis Police Department in August 2024, according to an article from the Register-Herald in Eaton. She previously was the assistant police chief for the village of about 850 people.
At that time, the Register-Herald reported that Lamanna also ran a business as a dog groomer and trainer, taught at Butler Tech and volunteered for a local fire department with a dog used to investigate arson cases. The article states she had extensive training in handling police dogs, numerous certifications and a master’s degree in education.
Her career started in 1999 when she joined the Verona Police Department, northwest of Dayton, according to state records. By 2001, she was working at the Dayton Police Department.
Lamanna rose through ranks to become a sergeant in Dayton, but was then fired from that department in 2017 on accusations she was untruthful and filed false documents, according to a report from the Dayton Daily News.
She was fired in the midst of a gender discrimination lawsuit she had filed against the department. In 2018, Dayton’s Civil Service Board upheld the firing. She lost the discrimination lawsuit in federal court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her appeal in 2019.
She was hired in 2018 as a part-time officer by the Union City Police Department near the Ohio-Indiana border. Then in 2020, she was hired as an auxiliary officer in Harveysburg.
Since her time in Dayton, she has worked for four different Ohio police departments, according to state records.
From 2021 to 2023, she worked at the Camden Police Department, then in November 2023 joined the Gratis Police Department as a part-time officer, according to state records. She became a full-time officer there in 2024 when she was promoted to chief.
After the incident in Cincinnati, Gratis councilwoman Vicki Blankenship told The Enquirer that she trusts that Lamanna would not be doing anything she should not be.
“She built our police department up with pennies,” Blankenship said. “We’re just a small town. She’s doing all the right things.”
Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones, whose department also has agreements with ICE, said Lamanna should have stayed in her jurisdiction.
“She never should have done it,” Jones told Enquirer media partner Fox 19. “She never should have gone out of her jurisdiction and surely shouldn’t have gone to Hamilton County or the city.”
The Enquirer has left multiple message for Lamanna since the April 15 incident and has not received a reply.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Gratis, Ohio, chief did ICE checks at Cincinnati schools. Who is Tonina Lamanna?
Reporting by Cameron Knight, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
