SPRINGFIELD — Family members took over a press conference being held by city leaders in Springfield Wednesday, questioning Police Chief Lee Graf about the investigation and bringing up concerns with the investigation and information they said was originally told to them.
>>RELATED: Press conference on Springfield man’s death becomes heated as family members question city leaders
Eric Eugene Cole, 42, of Springfield died early Monday morning at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. Cole had been shot and was later hit by a Springfield police cruiser, driven by Officer Amanda Rosalas who was responding to the scene, police said.
Several questions were asked and points made, not all were addressed by Graf, but some were addressed by him previously in the news conference.
>> Family, friends gather at vigil for Springfield shooting victim hit by responding police cruiser
Question: Why is there no mention of Cole being hit by the police cruiser in the police incident report?
Graf: “The incident report on Eric was in reference to the shooting. There is a report on the accident, the Ohio State Highway Patrol is working on that accident report probably as we speak.” Graf added there was a delay in the reporting of Cole getting hit by the cruiser, but he said the family was first to know after police collected facts on what happened.
Question: A man, who said he was Cole’s brother, questioned if there was a double standard of justice and asked if he or another citizen hit and killed a pedestrian, versus when an officer hits one.
Graf: “What you’re asking me to do is to predict what’s going to happen in an investigation, and that is extremely irresponsible on my part to even go there with you. But I will tell you this, we have citizens that have accidents every day. We have citizens that hit other citizens, vehicle verses pedestrian accidents. And, the idea that there is a difference in how that citizen is treated different than the officer, no, that’s not going to happen.”
He finished off his explanation describing a hypothetical situation involving two citizens and a pedestrian being hit. Graf said he believe the assumption is the driver would be arrested, to which he said was not always true. He said it all depends on the factors in the crash and who is determined as being at fault, in this given hypothetical scenario.
Graf said officers do not have any special treatment if a crime or traffic violation occurs.
“Officers get traffic tickets. They get issued when they have broken the Ohio Revised Code. If that’s found, and that’s determined by the OSHP, then that will be taken care of,” Graf said.
Question: Was their a breathalyzer test administer to Officer Amanda Rosalas and what was the result?
Graf: It is not department policy for an officer to be subjected to an automatic breathalyzer test after an accident, if there are no indications of impairment.
“It would be no different than if you (a citizen) got involved in an accident today and there were no indicators that you were under the influence of alcohol and or drug of abuse. Then would you expect me to do a breathalyzer test on you?”
“Was that question asked? Immediately. A captain went to the scene, talked to the officer. There were no indicators of any kind of impairment of any kind. So no, our policy states that in the case that it is suspected (a breathalyzer) can be administered. But that’s not the case here. And we don’t have any indication that it was.”
“To jump to the assumption that because there was not a breathalyzer or blood test that that means the officer was drunk, is very incorrect. Because it would be the same with any citizen.”
Question: Why is the victim, Cole, subject to toxicology report after his death with the coroner’s office and Rosalas isn’t subjected to a blood or breathalyzer test?
Graf: The toxicology report that will be conducted on Cole is a standard procedure done by the coroner’s office to rule on a person’s cause of death.
“That’s a coroner procedure that they draw blood and test for all those things. We (Springfield police) have no control over that nor did we ask for that.”
“Every time a citizen gets in an accident we do not require them to do a breathalyzer test.”
Question: Is this a case of qualified immunity?
Graf: “That is outside my bailiwick. It is truly. I can’t predict what’s going to happen between the family and the city. We’re going to do is provide what we can on the investigative side.”
Question: Family members questioned if and why Rosalas remained on the job after hitting Cole.
Graf: Previously in the news conference, Graf said Rosalas was placed on administrative leave after the incident. He did not indicate when her leave took effect.
Later Graf said: “If we made a mistake on not getting her out of that scene, that’s my responsibility. If we made mistakes, that’s my responsibility. And I’m sorry that that’s bringing up questions in your mind and I understand that.”
Question: Cole’s mother said she was only told at the scene he had been shot but didn’t find out until later he had also been run over. Family members added it was two whole days from his death to them being told he had been hit by the cruiser as well.
Graf: He did not specifically address this question when the family asked it. However previously in the news conference, Graf was asked a similar question about the delay from the incident Sunday night to releasing the information publicly Tuesday afternoon.
“We put the media release out yesterday. This is a complicated incident. And we’re trying to gather facts. We also have a responsibility to discuss this with the family. It was very important I felt that we needed to talk to the family about this before this came out to the media.”
“No family should ever be faced with finding out tragic facts about a loved one on television. Its our responsibility to make sure we’re talking to the family and preparing them for what’s to come next.”
“As soon as we were aware of the incident, we started to prepare. We knew we needed to talk to the family and of course at that point we released things to the media. But we wanted to wait until that was completed first.”
Question: Why are there two separate reports, one for the shooting where Cole was first injured, and a second one about him being hit by the cruiser?
Graf: “The accident is a separate incident from the shooting.”
Later, City Manager Bryan Heck said: “I assure you, we all want answers to those questions you have. We all do. That’s why the investigation of the traffic incident is separate and being done by an outside agency. We requested that. We wanted an outside agency to do that incident report. We wanted them to do the investigation so its a third-party eye looking at it. And we want the exact same answers that you’re asking too. And we’re going to do that through the internal investigation. We’re gonna do that. the Ohio State Patrol is going to do that through their traffic accident investigation. That will happen through those investigations. We ask for patience while we do that so we can get all the answers to those questions being asked.”
Question: What was Cole’s cause of death? Family members said at the hospital they were told he was shot and hit by a car and the crash part was what killed him.
Graf: Cole’s cause of death is still under investigation by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office. Graf said earlier in the news conference that it was too soon to say what his cause of death was, whether the shooting or the accident, until the coroner’s office released their final report.
While family members claim there was a two-day delay between Cole’s death and them finding out he had also been hit by a police cruiser, Graf did not directly address the delay.