A veteran officer at the Cleveland-area county jail has been fired amid an investigation into his actions on the day an inmate died after an apparent drug overdose in August.
A Cuyahoga County spokeswoman says the officer was fired Tuesday for failure to perform his duty and for falsifying records the day 47-year-old Joseph Arquillo died.
Cleveland.com reports the officer logged that he'd made his required rounds but later acknowledged the log was inaccurate and he'd been distracted by other tasks, such as distributing inmate mail and medication.
A statement from the union representing corrections officers says he denied filing a false incident report or trying to cover up information. The statement from the Ohio Police Benevolent Association says it intends to file a grievance over the officer's firing.
