Ohio police union rips Democrat Senate candidate Tim Ryan for his ‘ongoing problem’ with police

A prominent Ohio police union is criticizing Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan’s candidacy for Senate, given his past comments that were critical of law enforcement – and his own history of disorderly conduct with officers.

With less than eight weeks until the November midterm elections, Ryan has attempted to moderate his image to appeal to Ohio’s swing state voters. That includes casting himself as more pro-police than his Republican opponent, JD Vance. 

But Ryan has had multiple run-ins with the law in the past. In February 1995, the yet-to-be-lawmaker was cited for disorderly conduct after a different bar patron’s scuffle with police saw him throw cups of alcohol at the cops.

And in 2012, while he was already serving in the House of Representatives, Ryan was arrested for public intoxication in Virginia after a staffer’s wedding – though that charge was later dismissed.

‘Given Tim Ryan’s track record of calling police officers the new Jim Crow and voting to eliminate qualified immunity, it’s not surprise that this is the way he carries himself around law enforcement,’ Columbus Fraternal Order of Police President Jeff Simpson told DailyMail.com.

‘This trend of confrontational police encounters is not limited to his earlier years. Shamefully, this has been an ongoing problem with Mr. Ryan during his career in Congress.’

Simpson added, ‘It’s just another indication that Tim Ryan lacks respect for the badge and all that it represents. He’s wrong for Ohio.’

Rep. Tim Ryan is running for retiring GOP Senator Rob Portman’s seat against Republican JD Vance. DailyMail.com recently uncovered a 1995 police report in which a young Ryan is accused of throwing beer at police and hurling vulgarities while officers were attempting to control an unruly bar patron

Ryan’s comments about ‘the new Jim Crow’ were not about police specifically but rather the infrastructure of US justice as a whole. He said during a speaking event at Georgia’s Paine College in 2019, ‘I believe that the current criminal justice system is racist. I believe in my heart that it’s the new Jim Crow, a new version of it.’

But decades before, Ryan did take direct aim at the police – literally. 

In the early hours of February 11, 1995, Ryan shouted ‘vulgarities’ at officers as they attempted to drag an unruly woman off the premises in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ryan accused them of violating her civil rights.

He also hurled beer at officers during the ordeal, according to a court filing from the time that was obtained recently by DailyMail.com.

At the time he also attempted to ‘get out of trouble by claiming that his father was a friend of a Bowling Green administrator,’ according to an archived article in the Akron Beacon Journal.

In 1999, while in law school, Ryan attempted to have his record expunged – but failed to convince a judge that he was ‘rehabilitated.’

Columbus Fraternal Order of Police President Jeff Simpson told DailyMail.com, ‘Given Tim Ryan’s track record of calling police officers the new Jim Crow and voting to eliminate qualified immunity, it’s not surprise that this is the way he carries himself around law enforcement’

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He attempted to argue that his community service and work for his local US House member, Rep. Jim Traficant, was reason enough to prove his record should be sealed and the charge expunged.

Just three years later Traficant was convicted of 10 felony charges including bribery and racketeering. Ryan was elected as Traficant’s successor. 

Then in 2012, another run-in with the law came after police in Virginia observed Ryan was ‘unsteady on his feet.’ 

The police report, obtained by DailyMail.com, states that Ryan and the people he were with told officers they were returning to their hotel from a wedding. Cops reported smelling alcohol and that Ryan had ‘glassy bloodshot eyes.’ 

‘He stated that he only had a couple beers and that he had difficulty walking because he had back problems,’ the police report states.

Ryan refused to take a breathalyzer test and was put in the back of a police vehicle where he became ‘increasingly uncooperative’ including complaining that he was too tall for his seat.

The misdemeanor charge was later dismissed, according to a decade-old Washington Post story on the incident.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Ryan’s campaign for comment on the charges and the Fraternal Order of Police’s statement but has not heard back. 

Fast-forward to 2022, and Ryan is locked in a tight race with his Donald Trump-backed opponent to replace retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

Ryan is up against Trump-backed author and venture capitalist JD Vance in November’s race

A new poll from Emerson College Polling/The Hill shows author and venture capitalist JD Vance leading Ryan by four percent.

Both Vance and Ryan have traded barbs about the other’s comments about law enforcement.

Ryan has hammered Vance for calling to ‘abolish’ the bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, equating it to Vance wanting to ‘defund the police.’

The Republican author and venture capitalist, however, has seized on Ryan’s voting record showing his support for ending qualified immunity protections for the police.

He also criticized Ryan for incorrectly initially blaming police for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a black jogger who was profiled and killed by white racists earlier that year. 

Ryan also voted against a resolution to condemn calls to ‘defund the police’ that Republicans had attempted to introduce when the landmark George Floyd Justice In Policing Act was passed.