“They said they came over a couple of times and you were just wearing shorts and a t-shirt watching Cops. That could be an issue, obviously.”

It's not even 10 minutes into an internal investigation of a small-town police Chief and he is already accused of hanging out at home in his shorts binge-watching Cops while skipping out on duty. Looks like it could be a long day for Chief Jimmy Hanzey of the Buckeye Lake Police Department. Considering this all started because the veteran cop (who apparently only makes $14 per hour) showed up to a distress call he took on his personal cell phone not through the official 911 dispatch, this could have been easily avoided.

While off-duty on a Saturday night, he unintentionally discharged a weapon he borrowed from one of his constables during a botched raid on a trailer they believed was occupied by an injured but armed suspect. This incident set off a chain of events that would eventually make Hanzey a YouTube star who no longer had to worry if anyone was going to bother him again while he watched Cops during the day.

Hanzey had been assigned to desk duty after he had part of his finger amputated due to a non-work accident. The lifelong Buckeye Lake resident’s whole career (with nearly 30 years of experience) began to unravel after he took a call on his cell phone on a Saturday night from a family friend who told him her aunt had encountered burglars who were now barricaded in her double-wide trailer and one of them had been shot. Instead of patching the call through to 911, Hanzey, who had been out at Buffalo Wild Wings eating wedges, drinking diet Mountain Dews and munching on piles of hot wings with another off-duty officer, decided to take the call despite being on medical leave/desk duty until the next week. Like an episode of Keystone Cops, Hanzey and his partner burst into the mobile home in their street clothes with a third uniformed officer who attended the call officially and lent the Chief his firearm, only to find the trailer home empty. During the breach, somehow Hanzey let off a round into the floor after he thought he encountered an intruder in the pitch-black trailer. Turns out it was just a shadow from the light from the TV. Although nobody was hurt, it was later discovered the Aunt had dementia and had been experiencing hallucinations due to a urinary tract infection. There was no danger in the double-wide, it had all been the result of something she had seen early on the TV.

This errant shot into the floor set off a chain of events that would eventually see the Chief under investigation by the city council for a multitude of offences from the theft of money from a suicide crime scene to the removal of parts from impounded vehicles to cheque fraud to improper record keeping to the outright dereliction of his duties and ultimately skipping out on work to go 4-wheeling while claiming to be working overtime. Hanzey was also asked about the time he threatened to kill himself after one thing after another was going wrong and he was fed up with always taking a giant L in his day-to-day life. How do we know all this? The magic of YouTube, of course.

Along with the interview with the Chief, four other current and retired officers are brought in front of a special panel of detectives from the neighbouring Pataskala Police Department to discuss the inner workings of the dysfunctional Buckeye Lake Police Department. Originally intended as a routine investigation following an accidental discharge, this case evolved into a captivating YouTube mini-series full of everything that has made true crime and interrogations two of the most popular sections on the video-sharing site.

The unofficial series unintentionally reveals the incompetence, apathy, and lack of professionalism within a small-town police department whose officers make around the same per hour as some fast-food restaurant workers. While it may initially appear as an isolated incident of incompetence, it serves as a microcosm of small-town dynamics, where over-the-top personalities and politics intersect with dwindling resources, straight-up laziness, rampant Facebook gossip and record keeping that wasn’t based on the actual activity of the department. The cast of characters involved is so intriguing that they rival even the most captivating true crime dramas found on streaming services. If you can manage to not binge-watch these original interrogations and then dive into the sprawling network of reaction channels and analyses that have popped up around this incident, you have more willpower than most. Once you are done with this case, you’ll be hard pressed to not watch the Buckeye Village Council to find out what happens when the mayor forgets the camera is rolling and pours herself and her fellow council member a stiff drink in the chambers before a meeting and the ensuing aftermath once the video is seen by the public. There is never a dull moment in Buckeye Lake.

Jimmy Hanzey is escorted out of a city council meeting by his friend and former officer Jeffery Ver.

🚔Main Characters🚔

Watch the original interviews below. Like Netflix’s Kaleidoscope, you can watch them in any order but most will want to start with Hanzey.

▶️ Chief Hanzey

▶️Sgt. Andy Davis

▶️Sgt. Steven Ritter

▶️Detective Dorrie Vermillion

▶️Sgt. Jeffery Vermaaten