Cheating alleged by some OSHP troopers

COLUMBUS — Why might Highway Patrol troopers in the Canton area cheat on an exam so easy that even non-law-enforcement people can pass it, even without studying?

That’s one of the head-scratchers coming out of the report released this week by Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles alleging that troopers who work out of the patrol’s Canton post cheated on an exam to certify that they know how to use breath analysis equipment in drunken-driving arrests.

“There’s really no need to bring a cheat sheet into a test like that,” Massillon Municipal Judge Edward Elum said Thursday. “It’s so easy even a dummy like me can pass it. Nobody can understand why [they cheated].”

Perry Township Police Chief Timothy Escola took the test many times during his 28 years as a state trooper. The test is easy, he said, because it has the same questions every year.

“It’s very disturbing,” Escola said. “I don’t like to see that. I know most of those officers. They’re smart, intelligent officers who don’t need to take answers into the test with them.”

For more on this story, see Saturday’s Vindicator or Vindy.com.