TOLEDO, Ohio — The Lucas County Sheriff's Office has opened an investigation into two of its deputies after an incident last week.
The two will remain on active duty for now but the pair are accused of harassing a Toledo man, all for a situation that he said turned out to be a case of the wrong address.
WTOL 11 has watched David Rumberger's home security video of the alleged incident. The two deputies showed up at Rumberger's home Wednesday shortly after 11 a.m.
Their knock at the door woke up Rumberger and as he shook off sleep, he said he was surprised to be greeted by two plainclothes men wearing badges around their necks.
While the video has no audio, Rumberger said the deputies seemed to have only one thing on their minds.
"They say they're looking for somebody, Cori Stautzenbach," Rumberger said.
Property records show Stautzenbach hasn't lived there since 2012. Rumberger still gets her mail from time to time, but he said he has never met her or has any idea of who she is.
But Rumberger said the two deputies were convinced he was Stautzenbach.
"I was like look, 'I'm not that person, my name is David Rumberger, I'm going to go back into my house,'" Rumberger said. "And obviously, from what you can see from the video, when I reached for the door the officer lunged at me."
That's when all three men stay out of sight of the camera for nearly 30 seconds. Rumberger shared his account of what happened when the camera couldn't see them.
"(The deputies) slammed me up against this wall here and started choking me," Rumberger said. "It got to the point I couldn't breathe for a moment and natural self-instinct took over."
Rumberger said he started to fight back, and said that's how he got a cut on his chin. He said the scuffle was broken up after his father begged everyone to stop and his wife Heidi stepped in.
"I went inside, I grabbed his wallet, got his ID and brought it out to them," Rumberger's wife, Heidi Rumberger, said. "And then they (the deputies) said, 'do those cameras work?' his dad said 'yes,' and they left."
Now David Rumberger said he's looking into what can be done to hold the department accountable.
"I need some help because I don't feel like the situation was right," David Rumberger said. "I could have been seriously injured, and they just walked away and didn't say sorry, and acted like it was no big deal, another Tuesday."
He filed an internal affairs report with the sheriff's office last week. However, a representative with the sheriff's office told WTOL 11 that LCSO was still unable to make contact with him as recently as Monday morning.
WTOL 11 went to the jail and shared the surveillance camera video and interview to try and get the ball rolling for both parties.
According to LCSO's Captain Richard Grove, internal affairs investigations last for a maximum of 45 days.