A Rocky River police officer fired last year in the middle of a bitter feud with his chief is getting his job back after an arbitrator ruled the city botched its case against him. Officer Greg King was terminated in September 2025 over allegations of department-rule violations and harassment of another employee, but an arbitration decision now says Rocky River failed to follow its own procedures when it let him go.
The ruling, detailed in a report from cleveland.com, found that the city wrongfully terminated King in 2025 because it failed to follow proper policy. As a remedy, the city must reinstate King, pay him any lost wages and benefits he lost between his termination and reinstatement, and strip the termination-related discipline from his personnel file. Rocky River is also on the hook for the arbitrator's fees and expenses, which the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association says exceed $23,000.
King had been placed on leave in 2024 before his formal firing the following September, and he has said publicly that he believed the move was retaliation for a no-confidence vote he helped bring against Police Chief George Lichman. Cleveland.com's reporting notes some inconsistency in exactly when that no-confidence effort took shape, with the outlet's own account describing a vote in 2022 in one reference and a vote spanning 2022 and 2023 in another. King, who served as director of the department's patrolman bargaining unit, brought the no-confidence push against Lichman in 2023, according to the same report.
A Letter That Set Off Years of Turmoil
The dispute traces back to a letter officers delivered to Mayor Pamela Bobst raising concerns about the chief's decisions. That letter described Lichman's attendance at a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest as anti-police, and it accused him of discussing politics and religion with officers and of posting an Instagram photo purportedly showing him naked. The outlet's report notes the initial allegations against Lichman did not involve criminal activity.
Lichman has denied the allegations outright. Per the reporting, he vehemently denied all the claims in the officers' letter. Rocky River responded to the turmoil by hiring a law firm to run an independent investigation, which cleared Lichman of misdeeds, and the Ohio Attorney General's office referred a review to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. That office found insufficient evidence of any wrongdoing and no indication the matter needed to be presented to a grand jury.
Union Says the City Never Proved Its Case
On the arbitration ruling itself, the city's entire procedural investigation was conducted incorrectly under the collective bargaining agreement, including the fact that Rocky River did not get signed complaints from the people who accused King. OPBA attorney Adam Chaloupka said there were flaws in Rocky River's investigation against King, arguing it resulted in no just cause for discipline. Chaloupka also said the employer bears the burden of proving its case in labor-law disputes, and that Rocky River failed to prove its case against King.
Notably, the arbitration ruling did not mention King's alleged conduct as the reason he was reinstated — the decision hinged on the city's procedural failures, not a finding about what King did or didn't do. The Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association said an arbitrator validated the grievance it had filed on King's behalf. Chaloupka said King and the union felt vindicated by the outcome, and that King was happy to have his job back.
Lawsuit Still Pending, Reinstatement Still Pending Too
King filed a federal lawsuit against Rocky River and Lichman in December 2024, alleging that Lichman retaliated against him for raising concerns in the no-confidence letter. That lawsuit remains pending in federal court, separate from the arbitration case. As of the report's publication, the city had not officially put King back to work despite the arbitration decision ordering his reinstatement.
Lichman, King and Bobst did not respond to requests for comment from the outlet. The city's handling of the police department has drawn scrutiny before: a 2023 report from cleveland.com described the city engaging outside legal counsel and planning to bring in an independent law-enforcement operations consultant to assess the department amid the turmoil, as the dispute grew from union allegations and an administrative policy review into the arbitration fight over King's job that has now played out three years later.
