Fired Youngstown officer Brian Flynn
THE THIN BLUE LINE
DATELINE: POLAND, Ohio — Poland Village Police Department’s newest officer was supposed to serve as a school resource officer but instead will remain as a patrolman after the public raised concerns over an ongoing legal battle surrounding the new hire. The village swore in Brian Flynn on Tuesday, but soon had to reconsider placing him in the schools. Flynn is a former Youngstown Police Department lieutenant. He recently faced multiple misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty, accused of failing to assign cases of sex crimes involving children.
After the matter drew some outcry from the public, village Chief Don Lambert said Flynn will go through the department’s patrol training program and he will continue to seek a new school resource officer or may assign current officers to rotating shifts. Poland Schools Superintendent Dr. Craig Hockenberry said the district was unaware of Flynn’s background until Tuesday.“ The district didn’t find out until yesterday after he was sworn in,” Hockenberry said. “We don’t hire law enforcement at all. We contract with Poland Township and Poland village police departments, and they hire the officers and place them in the schools.”
Flynn was fired from YPD in December after the department completed an internal affairs investigation that led the city to charge him with 14 misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty. The department found that Flynn failed to assign a detective roughly two dozen referrals from the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force involving alleged child abuse and child pornography cases. Flynn at the time was head of the police department division known as the Family Investigative Services Unit, now called the Special Victims Unit.
Fired pervert Poland PD officer Steve Kent. He was not a drag queen.
Last year the Poland PD fired school resource officer Steve Kent. A lawsuit alleges that Kent began asking for explicit photos of the girl and then began sending nude photos of himself to her on Snapchat, saying, “I showed you mine so it is only fair that you show me yours.”
On March 24, 2020, the lawsuit alleges that Kent then had his daughter send the plaintiff a message through her social media account that he was saying hello, and he encouraged the two to become friends. According to the lawsuit, after Kent began communicating with the girl again, he would ask her to meet him at locations throughout Poland while he was working as a patrol officer.
After other officers were “on to him” he backed off.
According to the lawsuit, the two again began meeting up again in November 2020, this time outside of Kent’s work hours. During one meeting, the lawsuit alleges that Kent had his firearm with him and the lawsuit states that he told the girl that he carries it at all times. The lawsuit says the girl felt pressured into physical activity, partly because she felt threatened by his firearm that he had moved to the ground between them while they were in his truck. The lawsuit contends that Kent also “brainwashed” the girl into thinking that their relationship was genuine.
Kent was sentenced to a year in prison.
