A small Ohio village has placed its police chief and another officer on administrative leave after the two visited schools in Cincinnati claiming to be working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The village of Gratis announced during a special meeting April 19 that Police Chief Tonina Lamanna and officer Jeffrey Baylor have been placed on paid leave effective immediately. The pair traveled about 50 miles outside their jurisdiction to visit several schools in Cincinnati to perform wellness checks on students on behalf of ICE on April 15.
The village’s mayor Kevin Johnson said they were not notified of this operation by Lamanna and only learned about what had happened when other police departments reached out.
“The Village of Gratis does not condone these actions. It is not the practice of policy of the Village to participate in law enforcement operations outside of our jurisdiction, particularly those occurring two counties away,” Johnson said in a prepared statement.
The village’s council deliberated in private session for nearly 45 minutes after closing the room to discuss “possible discipline of police personnel.”
Johnson said he would appoint an interim police chief while the invetigation is ongoing. Gratis has two full-time officers, including Lamanna, and seven part-time officers, including Baylor, according to an Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy database.
Chief says she had ICE’s backing for visit
In response to questions from The Enquirer, Lamanna said she had ICE’s authorization and backing for the visit to Cincinnati before she drove down to several schools in the city.
Lamanna said these were the first welfare checks conducted since the Gratis police signed an agreement with ICE to perform immigration enforcement last October.
Under the Gratis department’s agreement with ICE, trained officers are enabled to interrogate and arrest anyone within their jurisdiction that they believe to be unlawfully in the country.
Two months later, after officers were trained by ICE, she said the village’s council was notified in December.
ICE initiative aims to locate immigrant children
An ICE spokesperson previously confirmed the chief’s reason for being at the schools, saying her department “attempted to verify school enrollment and conduct welfare checks on children who arrived unaccompanied across the border.”
The spokesperson emphasized it was not an ICE officer or an enforcement action.
Last November, the agency launched an initiative with state and local partners to “protect hundreds of thousands of children who entered the country and were placed with sponsors under the Biden administration.”
The primary focus of this initiative is to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, the spokesperson said.
An ICE memo states Homeland Security Investigations agents will create “target packets” and verify whether the children are registered in school and coordinate with other federal officials on obtaining warrants.
The Enquirer will update this report.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio police chief, officer who made ICE checks at Cincinnati schools put on leave
Reporting by David Ferrara and Aaron Valdez, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
