Cedar Point police must turn over records, Ohio Supreme Court finds

SANDUSKY, Ohio (WCMH) – Cedar Point’s police department must turn over incident reports and other records to three television stations, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled.

In an opinion released Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the Cedar Point Police Department to release records related to an injury from a rollercoaster and separate allegations of sexual assault, ruling the park’s police force operated as a de facto public institution. The park parent’s company, Cedar Fair, provided no evidence to the contrary, the opinion notes.

The unanimous ruling in favor of three stations owned by Tegna stems from three records requests made in 2021 and 2022. One station requested records related to an August 2021 incident when a guest was hit in the head by a metal bracket that fell from the Top Thrill Dragster. The other stations made separate requests in March and June 2022 seeking records related to allegations of sexual assault in the park’s employee housing.

The Cedar Point Police Department – established by a contract between Cedar Fair and the city of Sandusky and staffed by city-appointed officers – claimed to all three stations it had no responsive records and that it wasn’t beholden to public records laws. But the state’s high court disagreed.

As the per curiam opinion notes, Cedar Point police regularly worked with Sandusky police to investigate crimes, made arrests on park property, signed incident reports, underwent the same training Sandusky police officers were required to complete and were sworn in before the city manager. The park may pay for the officers’ training and salaries, the opinion notes, but the other factors weighed more heavily in favor of recognizing the department as performing the duties of a public office.

Shortly after one of the requests, Cedar Fair and the city of Sandusky announced in a joint release that Cedar Point police’s policing duties would be “fully transitioned” to the city police force, while park police would “focus solely on security operations at Cedar Point.” That change of status didn’t sway the court.

“At the time of the public-records requests, the CPPD was serving as the police department for the employees and guests of Cedar Point,” the opinion reads. “It does much more than just provide security for Cedar Point. Enforcing criminal laws is a core government function.”

The court stopped short of ordering all records released, however; An NBC affiliate station in Cleveland was not entitled to receive records created by EMS personnel from the park, as those services were not provided through Cedar Point police.

The opinion also emphasized that it should not be construed as applying to all privately hired police officers; rather, Cedar Point police were found to be acting as the "functional equivalent of a public institution."

The court ordered Cedar Fair to pay the stations’ court costs but declined to award them statutory damages or attorney fees. Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justice Melody Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that they would have awarded fees and damages.

Read the opinion below.