Officer(s) involved: Athens Police Department (APD) officer Ethan James Doerr, born 24 June 1990.
Synopsis: Officer Doerr has a record of excessive force allegations spanning multiple agencies.
In early 2023, Doerr tased a 19-year-old Ohio University student as he ran away from the scene of a fight. It’s unclear from the bodycam footage how the fight started, although the footage shows the student was not the only participant in the incident.
The student protested multiple times that he was the one initially hit during the fight. It doesn’t appear from the bodycam footage that the any of the others involved were detained.
In 2019, Doerr was among officers who responded to a fight outside the J Bar on Court Street. Doerr tackled and tased Ty Bealer, an unarmed Black University of Cincinnati student, prompting outrage and protests in Athens and Cincinnati. Officer Doerr tased Bealer three times after he had been pinned down. Witnesses stated that Bealer did not fight back.
In 2018, Doerr tased OU student Jacob Francis after witnessing an argument between Francis and a woman on College Street, causing him to fall 15-20 feet down three steps and into a wall, according to a lawsuit Francis filed. A federal judge dismissed the suit on summary judgment.
In 2016, Michael Moe of Sugar Grove, Ohio, accused Doerr, at the time a patrol officer with the Logan Police Department (LPD), of arresting him in 2015 without cause and using “unreasonable force,” according to a lawsuit, which he filed on his behalf without legal representation. It is believed that a settlement was reached in this case.
Outcome: During a community forum, APD Chief Tom Pyle acknowledged that the department knew of the LPD lawsuit when they hired Doerr but hired him anyway. Despite these lawsuits, Doerr has not been found to have violated departmental policy previously, according to Pyle.
Pyle made a distinction between lawsuits and any violation of departmental policy, arguing that “anybody can file a lawsuit,” and noting that Doerr has not been found to have violated departmental policy previously.
Chief Pyle added that the department is constantly updating its use-of-force policies to be in line with court decisions, and has “ongoing conversations” about race and policing. In about 48 percent of the APD’s use-of-force incidents, he said, three or more officers are involved in the arrest.
Upon being asked by a forum participant, both Pyle and OU Police Department Chief Andrew Powers confirmed that neither the OUPD nor APD have any African-American officers, something that both chiefs said they want to change.
Additional information: According to information obtained from various sources:
- Doerr has been sued at least twice for excessive use of force.
- He deploys force more than any other APD officer, at a rate of more than 7 times per year. The department average is 2.12/year.
- He deploys force against Black folks at 6x the rate of white folks.
- He has the highest arrest rate in APD at 121/year.
- He arrests Black folks at 1.6x the rate of white folks (NOT the worst on the force, and only marginally worse than the department average of 1.46).
- He deploys his TASER more than any other APD officer – 2.49 times a year compared to the department average of 0.2.
- He has the second highest rate of take downs in the department at 3.3/year, compared to the average of 0.94.
