Ohio sheriff's lieutenant apologizes for 'won't help Democrats' post, blames sleep medication

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio sheriff's patrol commander who declared on Facebook that he would not help Democrats and would require proof of who a person voted for before providing them aid has apologized, blaming prescribed sleep aids for causing his “out of character” actions.

Lt. John Rodgers, a 20-year veteran of the sheriff's office in Clark County, where Springfield is the county seat, made the statements in several posts on Facebook, WHIO-TV reported.

“I am sorry. If you support the Democrat Party I will not help you,” Rodgers reportedly wrote in one post. Another said: “The problem is that I know which of you supports the Democratic Party and I will not help you survive the end of days."

The sheriff’s office said Rodgers, who has commanded the department's road patrol, would remain on duty, with a written reprimand for violating the department’s social media policy.

“We’ve been in this battle over the last few months, with the attacks on the Haitian community and other immigrants, and we protect people’s rights and we don’t support the conduct to the contrary,” Mike Young, the county’s chief deputy, told the Springfield News-Sun. “I can’t go back in time and take that post away; the lieutenant made the post and he has received consequences for that.”

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and his running mate JD Vance, drew Springfield into the national spotlight with false claims — some made during a nationally televised presidential debate — that the city's Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pet dogs and cats. Springfield is in southwestern Ohio between Columbus and Dayton.

Clark County Elections Director Jason Baker said Rodgers was not scheduled to be at the county elections board on Tuesday night, but that the sheriff's office is still planning to send other officers there to provide security during the election count.

“I think the public should still be safe, with the Clark County sheriff's department and the Springfield Police Department at work,” he told The Associated Press. “We're all fighting for the same outcome, which is to have a peaceful day.”

A sheriff’s office statement said the posts do not reflect the office’s mission and values.

“It is understood that while these comments are highly inappropriate, they in no means reflect the Clark County Sheriff’s Office delivery of service to ALL our community," the statement said. “The community has a right to be upset over the actions of Lt. Rodgers and he, as well as the Sheriff’s Office in general, will have to work even harder to replenish the trust of members of our community.”

Rodgers formally responded to the reprimand, writing in a letter in his personnel file that he does not recall writing the posts or taking them down, and was alerted to them when a coworker asked if he was OK, the Springfield News-Sun reported. Rodgers wrote that he did not find them on his page when he searched for them and that the first time he saw them was during a meeting with a department official.

Rodgers said he sometimes takes a prescribed sleep aid that can cause him to send “out of character” texts, phone calls or other forms of communication as a side effect. The lieutenant said that as soon as he learned of the messages on Tuesday, he deactivated his Facebook account and stopped taking the medication, the newspaper reported.

Clark is not the only Ohio county dealing with controversial statements made by law enforcement officials on social media.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s election monitoring operation is on site in Portage County, in the northeastern part of Ohio, to ensure the county complies with federal voting rights laws during early voting and on Election Day.

That’s after Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, a Republican, was accused last month of intimidating voters. Zuchowski, who is running for reelection, posted on social media that people with Kamala Harris yard signs should have their addresses written down so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democrat wins the presidency.

In the wake of the comments, the Portage County Board of Elections voted to forego using sheriff's deputies for election security this year.

Asked at a news conference Monday about how the two cases might impact voters' feelings of safety, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said some law enforcement officials — particularly when they’re running for office — can sometimes make comments that are “ill-advised.”

“But that doesn’t, in any way, implicate the dedicated sworn deputies that work for them,” he said. ”Those are dedicated people that are first and foremost lawmen and women. They’ve sworn an oath to do this. They put their life on the line to do this, and I have every confidence that they take that duty very seriously.”

FILE - A campaign sign for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz is displayed in Downtown Springfield, Ohio, near the Springfield News Sun building, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)

This undated image provided by the Clark County Ohio Government website shows Lt. John Rodgers, a 20-year veteran of the Clark County sheriff’s office, who posted on Facebook that he would not help people who support the Democratic Party. (Clark County Ohio Government Website via AP)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government said Saturday it will not attend a memorial service near Japan’s Sado Island Gold Mines due to unspecified disagreements with Tokyo over the event, which stirred longstanding tensions over the abuse of Korean forced laborers at the site before the end of World War II.

The decision marked a rare display of friction between the countries since the 2022 inauguration of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon has prioritized improving relations with Japan following years of disputes over their bitter history and solidifying three-way security cooperation with Washington to counter North Korean nuclear threats, but has faced accusations at home that he was neglecting the suffering of Korean survivors.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was impossible to settle the disagreements between both governments before the planned event near the mines on Sunday. It didn't specify what the disagreements were.

Japanese officials had no immediate comment.

Some South Koreans had criticized Yoon’s government for throwing its support behind an event without securing a clear Japanese commitment to highlight the plight of Korean laborers.

South Korean sentiment over the event worsened after the Japanese government said this week it would send Akiko Ikuina, a parliamentary vice minister at the country’s Foreign Ministry, to the event. Ikuina had reportedly visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine following her election as a lawmaker in 2022. The shrine honors the country’s about 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals. Japan’s neighbors view the shrine as a symbol of the country’s past militarism.

There were also complaints over South Korea agreeing to pay for the travel expenses of Korean victims’ family members who were invited to attend the ceremony.

Ties between Seoul and Tokyo have long been complicated by grievances related to Japan’s brutal rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Koreans were mobilized as forced laborers for Japanese companies, or sex slaves at Tokyo’s military-run brothels during World War II. Many forced laborers are already dead and survivors are in their 90s.

Historians say hundreds of Koreans were forced to labor at the Sado mines under abusive and brutal conditions during World War II. Japan’s government has said Sunday’s ceremony will pay tribute to “all workers” who died at the mines, without specifying who they are. Critics saw this as part of a persistent policy of whitewashing Japan’s history of sexual and labor exploitation before and during the war.

The 16th-century mines on the island of Sado, off the western coast of Niigata prefecture, operated for nearly 400 years before closing in 1989 and were once the world’s largest gold producer. The mines were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site earlier this year after Tokyo and Seoul settled a yearslong dispute. South Korea withdrew its opposition to the listing after Japan agreed to acknowledge Korean suffering more clearly in the site’s exhibition and to include Koreans in a memorial ceremony.

In 2023, Yoon took a major step toward improving ties with Japan that had deteriorated for years over historical grievances and trade disputes, by announcing a plan to compensate Korean forced laborers from the colonial period without requiring contributions from Japanese companies.

Yoon’s plan, which relies on money raised in South Korea, drew an immediate backlash at home from former forced laborers and their supporters, who had demanded direct compensation from the Japanese companies and a fresh apology from the Japanese government.

__ AP writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.

Remains of Japan’s Sado gold mine are seen on Sado Island, northern Japan, on Aug. 19, 2021. (Keiji Uesho/Kyodo News via AP)