WHITEHALL, Ohio — It’s not quite a “get out of jail free” card, but it could be close.
On Thursday, anyone with a local, non-violent, misdemeanor warrant in Whitehall can get the warrant tossed.
It’s all part of the Whitehall Division of Police Warrant Forgiveness Day.
“I think it is a holiday gift from Whitehall PD,” said Sgt. Jon Earl. “That’s kind of the goal of, the holiday season is coming up, and a lot of people might be coming home for the holidays. They can come home, get their court cases disposed of, and get a new court date.”
The idea came to Sgt. Earl while the department was trying to figure out how to deal with a warrant overload. The department has more than 1,000 outstanding warrants on file right now.
The warrants that would qualify are mostly traffic-related. Warrants connected to weed or grass violations or barking dogs also would fall under the forgiveness umbrella.
“We’re definitely not going to allow any kind of violent crimes to walk away,” the sergeant said. “This is just for non-violent crimes, and it’s just for misdemeanor crimes as well.”
Normally when the warrants get piled up to this point, the department sends out officers to knock on doors and track down people. But, in the age of COVID-19 and other dangers, finding an alternative seemed like a better option.
So, on Thursday, several officers and staffers will be on hand to check people in, drop their warrant and get court dates scheduled for after the first of the year.
It all sounded a bit too good to be true for many social media users who flooded the Whitehall PD Facebook page with comments.
“There’s a lot of people out there that don’t believe this is happening, so they believe this is some kind of scam to get officers to get arrests or to get arrested,” Sgt. Earl said. “I’ve seen a lot of funny comments through social media about this whole thing, and it’s not true. We are literally going after the non-violent misdemeanor warrants that are issued through Whitehall.”
The event will be held from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Thursday at the Whitehall Division of Police headquarters. Police are asking that those who show up bring an ID and arrive alone to better allow for COVID-19 safety protocols.