Reynoldsburg, Ohio officer searched same plate 53 times without case numbers, resigned before misconduct interview

On July 16, 2026, Reynoldsburg, Ohio police officer Alissa Birkhimer resigned from the Reynoldsburg Division of Police, one day before she was scheduled to appear for an Internal Affairs interview about her use of the department's Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader system. Birkhimer had served with the department since December 2022. She was placed on administrative leave on July 2, 2026, the same day a lieutenant's routine audit of the Flock system flagged her search history.

According to internal-affairs records obtained by Ohio news outlets through public-records requests, the audit found Birkhimer had searched the same Ohio license plate 53 times between January 2 and June 26, 2026. For the searches logged from January through April, she listed the reason as a larceny/theft case but entered no case number, which department policy requires. In June she cited a case number tied to a search for a missing, endangered elderly woman with dementia, but the investigating lieutenant wrote that he could not connect that case to the plate she had been repeatedly searching, and records show the vehicle in question belonged to someone unrelated to that missing-person investigation.

The audit that caught Birkhimer was the same proactive review that separately caught fellow officer Mark Nichols making 47 unauthorized Flock searches of his former domestic partner's vehicle; Nichols' violation was formally sustained by Deputy Chief Mike Binder. No comparable finding was ever issued for Birkhimer — the records released to reporters do not include a completed internal-affairs report or any determination of whether her searches violated policy, and department records do not indicate whether investigators continued her case after she resigned. Reynoldsburg Police Chief Curtis Baker said in a statement that his office identified both officers' searches through "proactive audit efforts" and that using any department database, including Flock Safety, "for non-law enforcement purposes is serious and will not be tolerated within the Reynoldsburg Division of Police."

Updates

2026-08-05 — Officials disclosed resignations, referred matter to state investigators [4]

Reynoldsburg officials publicly disclosed both officers' resignations for the first time. Mayor Joe Begeny said the matter would be referred to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for possible further review. As of this recording, no outcome of a BCI referral concerning Birkhimer had been reported.