Circleville, Ohio officer Ryan Speakman was fired “effectively immediately” Wednesday after the department completed its review of his use of force against an unarmed, kneeling black man with his hands in the air. Speakman set a dog on truck driver Jaddarius Rose, supposedly pulled over for a missing mud flap, despite other officers telling him not to.
“Officer Speakman did not meet the standards and expectations we hold for our police officers,” police officials said.
Governor Mike DeWine blamed the dog.
The governor said he will propose to the state General Assembly that funding be added to the state budget to build a training facility for K-9 units across Ohio, saying, he wants the training to “be available to every single law enforcement agency in the state of Ohio no matter how big or how small.”
Which is interesting because stories about this incident are taking on a stronger “cop press release” tone today, even with Speakman’s firing. The angle is that the incident was a K9 training failure. One item from the AP plainly suggests the dog set itself on Rose and Speakman’s failure was to “let” it do so. This exonerative circumlocution has wandered into simple falsehood, though, because on the footage you can see and hear Speakman command the dog to attack Rose when it fails to do so immediately after being unleashed.
