The Infamous Ex-Chief

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Scott Gardner examines whether a query of a stored automated license plate reader history, such as a Flock search, is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, and what courts have actually held. The episode separates the holdings of the courts from the host’s own analysis, and the host identifies his opinion as opinion where it appears. This episode is not legal adv...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Flocked, host Scott Gardner reviews public records produced by the City of Brunswick, Ohio concerning audit and review practices for the city’s Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras. The episode compares statements made to the Safety and Environmental Committee of city council on May 18, 2026 with the city’s own emails, policy drafts, dispatch entr...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, host Scott Gardner reviews public records obtained from multiple Medina County, Ohio agencies concerning outside agency access to Flock Safety automated license plate reader systems. The central question posed to each agency was who approves an outside agency’s access, whether that approval is documented in writing, and whether the approval is ever reviewed. Recor...

Send us Fan Mail pisode 2 of The Infamous Ex-Chief's series on Flock Safety license plate readers examines how to interpret organization audit logs obtained under the Ohio Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43, and the written responses several agencies provided when asked to explain searches that carry no case number. What this episode covers 1. How an audit row is generated. According to the Wads...

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of the series on Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras, the host explains that he asked the East Cleveland city council to fund the technology while serving in law enforcement, and then reviews public records from Ohio law enforcement agencies concerning how officers' searches of the system are documented and audited. The host notes that, i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Gregg Owen, a former Cook County homicide prosecutor and author of Convergence, discusses a 1976 double murder prosecution and the events surrounding it, as he recounts them. Owen describes an initial courtroom assignment he characterizes as irregular, a period during which physical evidence went missing from a Cook County Sheriff's Office inventory space, an...

Send us Fan Mail On September 3, 2026, Scott Gardner extended a settlement offer to the Village of Mantua in his pending mandamus action, which raises a question of first impression under Ohio law: whether an independent, multi-platform investigative journalist qualifies for the public records requester exception set out in Revised Code 149.43(B)(9)(c). The offer proposed to waive statutory damage...

Send us Fan Mail Five episodes into the Rocky River investigation, this installment examines the special prosecutor's own investigative memoranda, obtained directly and reviewed in full for the first time on this platform. The memoranda, addressed to Rocky River Law Director Michael O'Shea and dated August 17 and September 22, 2023, contain a legal analysis under six Ohio statutes: sexua...

Send us Fan Mail One hundred twenty-seven days after a shooting at Valley Forge High School, Parma City School District still has not produced basic records about what happened before, during, and after that day. That case is now in mediation in the Ohio Court of Claims, four months after the original public records request was filed. This episode is a comprehensive status update on every active p...

Send us Fan Mail A listener asked the question I get more than any other: does any of this reporting actually lead anywhere, or is it just content? So I answered it directly, using the Creston, Ohio fiscal officer case as the example. Here's what's confirmed on the record. The Village of Creston has never given a public explanation for why their fiscal officer was disciplined or why she...

Send us Fan Mail A whistleblower complaint to the FAA. A membership revoked over a phone call. Five years of self-represented litigation, a $45,000 sanctions order, and now a petition to the United States Supreme Court built partly on an allegation that a court transcript was altered. Scott Gardner sits down with the man known online as "Chardon Pro Se" to walk through the entire paper t...

Send us Fan Mail Jeffrey Deskovic was 16 years old when police put him through a six to seven hour polygraph session with no attorney and no parent in the room. The man running that session later testified in court, under oath, that his method had a name: GTC. Get The Confession. The DNA from the crime scene excluded him. The hair comparison excluded him. The jury convicted him anyway, and Deskovi...

Send us Fan Mail Five episodes. One case. A question nobody in authority has answered. In the finale of "The Worst Kept Secret in Rocky River," we trace what happened after former Rocky River police officer Michael Bernhardt's indictment — the third victim's attorney who called BCI the day the indictment dropped, the collapse from six warrants alleging rape and kidnapping down...

Send us Fan Mail She came forward on her own. Saw the news coverage, recognized what had happened to her, and made the call. What happened next is what this episode is about. Case 2023-2700 is the second victim's case. A graduating senior at Rocky River High School. Michael Bernhardt was her SRO during her senior year. When BCI investigators asked him about his Snapchat username, he gave them...

Send us Fan Mail Garrettsville PD billed me $225 for body camera footage. Their own  CAD records show approximately 57 minutes of combined on-scene time  across both incidents. Ohio Revised Code 149.43(B)(1) caps body  camera fees at $75 per hour of video produced — not per hour of  labor, not per hour of staff time. Per hour of video produced. At  that rate, 57 minutes of footage has a maximum la...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 3 of The Worst-Kept Secret, an ongoing investigation into Rocky River Police Department SRO Michael Bernhardt, covers what the department knew, when they knew it, and what everyone around Bernhardt did or failed to do with that information. Bernhardt's second wife, a 30-year special education coordinator at Rocky River High School, describes going to the superintenden...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 2 of The Worst-Kept Secret in Rocky River. In June of 2024, the first victim's best friend sat down with BCI Special Agents Heather Karl and Stacy Pfeiffer at the Richfield Field Office. She had known the first victim since eighth grade. Twenty years later, she remembered every detail. This episode is built from her recorded BCI statement, the first victim's own...

Send us Fan Mail Every legacy media outlet in Cleveland ran the press releases, aired the clips, and moved on. Nobody read the appellate record. Nobody stayed with the story. I did. On May 2, 2025, I identified the exact legal problem that 7 judges on the Ohio Court of Appeals Eighth District just confirmed this morning was serious enough to stop everything and examine. Today, July 6, 2026, the fu...

Send us Fan Mail Six search warrants. Four agencies. One outcome nobody can explain on the record. 🔍 Michael Bernhardt was a Rocky River police officer for 29 years. For the last 12, he was the school resource officer with a badge, keys to every building in the district, and daily unsupervised access to students. He also spent 16 years on the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, where he...

Send us Fan Mail They closed this case and called it "likely" self-infliction. But here's what the actual file says. 🔍 Bryon Macron was a Lafayette Township trustee in Medina County, Ohio. He was also a trained FAST Marine. On December 16, 2016, he texted a business contact at 12:36 AM to say he'd be there the next morning. Seventy-four minutes later, a vehicle matching his pu...

Send us Fan Mail A progressive blogger named D.J. Byrnes, who runs the newsletter The Rooster, was sitting in a public hearing at the Ohio Statehouse when the State Highway Patrol walked up and arrested him. The charge was a first-degree misdemeanor for telecommunications harassment. The conduct behind it was an AI cartoon of Shrek and two text messages sent to State Senator Jerry Cirino, a Lake C...

Send us Fan Mail Christine Russo AKA the Big Sister: Unhinged has stayed quiet for four years. Not anymore. 🔍 On July 31st, 2022, her younger brother Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan died when Mackenzie Shirilla drove a Toyota Camry into a brick wall at nearly 100 miles an hour. A judge later found Shirilla guilty of murder. Two counts. 15 years to life. Then Netflix released The Cras...

Send us Fan Mail Government Won't Release Records? Here's Why "Ongoing Investigation" is ILLEGAL When you request public records, government agencies love hiding behind "ongoing investigation." But that's not how the law works. In this video, I break down: ✓ What Ohio law ACTUALLY says about investigations ✓ Why agencies use this as a blanket excuse ✓ Real exampl...

Send us Fan Mail Bryan Malinowski ran the Little Rock Airport, had no criminal record, and sold coins and guns at weekend gun shows as a hobby. He never got a warning. Never got a letter. The ATF showed up at 6AM with 10 vehicles, breached his front door in 28 seconds, and shot him in the head. Two years later, not one agent has faced any consequence. No press conference. No report. Nothing. Attor...

Send us Fan Mail I released a detailed investigative breakdown of the Parma Heights Police Department's incident report from April 20, 2026. This video covers critical details that haven't been widely reported, and I'm correcting a mistake I made early in my coverage. CORRECTION: I repeatedly mispronounced Officer Christopher D. Rossman's name throughout my initial reporting. H...