On September 4, 2025, Officer Dennis Mohan of the Warren Township Police Department wrote a report. In his own words, on that report, he documented that he told me my situation was a civil matter and that I should contact my attorney or the court.
Eleven days later, the same officer charged me with a crime over the same incident.
In between those two things, I filed a formal complaint against him.
I have the report. I have the recording of the call. I have the court file. I have every email. This is the whole story, with the documentation.
What I Actually Did
I share equal custody of my son, Tanner. Our final divorce decree, signed by a judge, includes a Right of First Refusal clause. The language is specific: if the other parent can’t personally use their parenting time, I have to be offered the time before it goes to “family members, sitters, day care facilities, or other collaterals of the family.”
That week, my ex told me she didn’t need me to pick Tanner up from school. Given everything our custody case has already put me through, I wasn’t going to just take her word for it. So I drove by to see what was happening.
I watched my son get off the bus. The person who met him wasn’t my ex. It was her teenage daughter. I honked, rolled my window down, and told Tanner he could come with me. His sister took him inside. I left. No confrontation. No scene. I recorded the whole thing, because I’ve learned how fast a father trying to enforce a court order gets painted as the threat.
That was it. That’s the “crime.” One drive-by and one honk while exercising a right the court gave me in writing.
The Phone Call
About an hour later, Officer Dennis Mohan (Badge #2738, CAD/Event #25-0010503) called me. The call lasted over twenty minutes. I recorded all of it.
He told me the divorce decree wasn’t a court order. His words: “In the decree, it’s not a court order. It’s a decree.” A sworn officer, telling me a document signed by a judge isn’t an order, while we discussed the exact language of that document.
He threatened me: “If there’s even one message from you not involving the child, I’m going to charge you.” One message. Any text that wasn’t strictly about my son, and he was ready to file charges.
He tried to change my custody arrangement over the phone, telling me my ex now wanted exchanges at the police station because she felt scared. No new order. No agreement from me. Just her feelings, suddenly converted into a rule I was supposed to follow.
When I told him I’d keep following the order the judge actually signed, he said I was “showing a pattern of stalking.” One drive-by. One attempt to pick up my own son, which the decree entitled me to do.
I asked him a direct question: if she had no texts from me that weren’t about the child, would he charge her for filing a false report? He said yes, he would. He never did.
His Own Report Contradicts the Charge
Here is the center of this whole thing.
In the narrative supplement Officer Mohan wrote himself, under incident #25-0010503, dated the day it happened, he documented that:
- He advised me this was a civil matter and to contact my attorney and/or the court.
- My ex claimed I sent her nasty texts and had been told to stop contacting her except about the child.
- I told him I was not harassing her.
- I told him I had a court order giving me the right to get my child off the bus.
So in his own handwriting, on the day of the incident, this was a civil custody dispute that he himself told me to take to court. That is not my characterization. That is the officer’s.
Eleven days later, that same officer signed a criminal complaint against me over that same incident.
The only thing that changed in between was that I filed a complaint about him.
The Complaint Nobody Answered
On September 5, I went to the station in person, calm and respectful, to get the officer’s name, badge number, and incident number for my custody case. I recorded that conversation too. They told me to email Chief Benjamin Harrell to file a formal complaint.
I did, that same day. My email laid out the exact quotes from the call, the CAD number, and a clear request: open a professional-standards review, give me a complaint/intake number and the assigned investigator’s name, and assign it to a supervisor other than Mohan, given that he was the subject.
Then I followed up. September 9. September 20. October 14. In the October 14 email I put it in writing that the state’s evidence against me included text messages roughly two years old that showed no signs of harassment, and that the timing raised relevance and retaliation concerns.
Four emails. I never got a single reply. No complaint number. No investigator. No acknowledgment that my complaint existed at all.
The Charge
Warren Municipal Court, Case No. 25 CRB 001589 — State of Ohio v. Derek J. Salyers. Telecommunications Harassment, a misdemeanor under R.C. 2917.21(B). Filed September 8, 2025. The complainant on the form: Patrolman Dennis Mohan, Badge 2738.
What was the charge actually built on? Not the bus incident. A single text message from more than two years earlier, where I’d called my ex a bad mother after she did something that hurt our son.
One text. From 2023. Already past the statute of limitations. Already failing to meet Ohio’s definition of harassment.
When the paperwork was delivered, it wasn’t a clerk or a process server who brought it. It was Officer Mohan himself, at my door, with another officer for backup. The same officer I had filed a formal complaint about, personally hand-delivering the charge. He made a point of telling me he could take me in but was “just giving me the paper.”
The case was reset three times: September 23, October 28, and November 25, before Judge Patricia Knepp in Courtroom 1. My attorney was Shawna Merkich. On the final date, the prosecutor dropped it, because it was past the statute of limitations and the text wasn’t harassment under Ohio law.
Both of those things were true the day it was filed.
The Timeline, in One Place
- Sept 4: I exercise a court-ordered right. My ex calls police. Mohan threatens me, tries to rewrite my custody order by phone, and writes a report calling the whole thing civil and telling me to go to court.
- Sept 5: I go to the station and file a complaint against Mohan with Chief Harrell.
- Sept 8: Mohan signs a criminal complaint against me over the same incident, built on a two-year-old text.
- ~Sept 16: Mohan personally hands me the charging paperwork at my door.
- Sept 9, 20, Oct 14: I follow up with Harrell three more times. Silence.
- Nov 25: The prosecutor dismisses the case as time-barred and not harassment.
I believe that sequence speaks for itself. A civil matter became a criminal charge only after I complained about the officer handling it. That is not protecting and serving. That is retaliation.
Why This Is Bigger Than Me
This is what happens when police step into civil custody disputes they don’t understand. When an officer decides a judge’s decree isn’t a real order. When the first person to call is automatically believed and the parent trying to enforce a court order is automatically treated as a threat. When a chief can let four documented complaint attempts go unanswered, and let his officer turn a civil call into a criminal charge in the meantime.
And it’s about how hard accountability is. Qualified immunity. Internal reviews that lead nowhere. Prosecutors who won’t pursue their own. It stacks up until most people give up. I’m not most people.
Why I’m Publishing This
Not for revenge. Not for clicks. Patterns only come to light when people stop staying quiet.
If Officer Dennis Mohan has done this to someone else. If Chief Benjamin Harrell has buried other complaints. If Warren Township PD has a habit of leaning on the people who file them. That deserves to be documented, and it can’t be unless people come forward.
Everything here is backed by records:
- Full audio of the September 4 call with Officer Mohan (available on request)
- The recorded September 5 conversation at the station (available on request)
- My complaint and all four follow-up emails to Chief Harrell (available on request)
- Court records from Case No. 25 CRB 001589: the complaint signed by Mohan, his narrative supplement, the incident report, and all three hearing notices (available on request)
- The Right of First Refusal language from the final divorce decree (available on request)
If This Has Happened to You
If you’ve dealt with Officer Dennis Mohan or another Warren Township officer the same way. If you filed a complaint with Chief Benjamin Harrell and got nothing back. If you were threatened with charges for following a court order in a custody case. If you believe you were retaliated against for speaking up.
Email me: derek@omgitsderek.com
I’m not a lawyer and I’m not starting a class action. I’m documenting what’s happening. The more people who come forward, the harder this is to keep buried.
Some of the original document links on this site are being restored after technical issues.
Last updated: 6/26/2026. Warren Township PD: still silent on my complaint. My resolve: still here.
This post reflects my opinions, based on documented evidence, public records, a recorded phone call, and the officers’ own written reports. Officer Dennis Mohan and Chief Benjamin Harrell are welcome to respond publicly at any time. If new information changes the picture, I’ll update this post.