She is second officer fired; chief resigned after city began investigation of department
By Mary MacDonald
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — A Sandy Springs police patrol supervisor, fired for what city officials have said was a pattern of violating policies, challenged her dismissal as unfair at a hearing Thursday at police headquarters.
Former Sgt. Tanya Smith said she was held accountable for doing things authorized by her superiors, such as adjusting her work hours on occasion to accommodate an extra job, or that other employees had done without penalty.
Smith, 39, is the second police supervisor fired in recent weeks to make similar arguments in challenging her dismissal. Former Lt. Trudi Vaughan on Tuesday also publicly refuted the findings of a city-initiated investigation into the police department, which has been cited by city officials as justification for firing both women.
Acting Chief of Police David Bertrand fired Smith on July 18. In a letter, Bertrand said Smith had violated several policies, including adjusting her regular work schedule at least twice to work a side job directing traffic outside a private school, and collecting more than the $50 an hour limit allowed for officers working extra jobs.
Vaughan, who oversaw special operations officers, including in drug enforcement and SWAT, was fired July 16. Among other things, Bertrand found, she violated city policy by improperly supervising 20 of the special operations officers at a training session April 10 in Madison.
The officers were taking part in a mandatory session coordinated by Vaughan, when they shot weapons that city officials say they weren’t trained to use and rode dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles over a jump without using safety gear.
According to a transcript of his interview with investigators, and after viewing part of a video of the activities, Bertrand, then a police department major, called the training “a malfeasance of city money.”
“Not only that, but the responsibility we took by allowing officers on duty, on city time, to go four-wheeling, while other officers are answering calls,” Bertrand told investigators. “And the liability if one of these officers . . . got hurt, maimed or paralyzed out there.”
Vaughan, who also took part in the trip, has said it’s been overblown. “This was not pre-planned on my part and since these were grown, responsible men, I did not see the harm in letting them blow off some steam and bond after the weapons training,” she said, in a document submitted this week to police officials.
On Thursday, before entering an administrative hearing at police headquarters, Smith also criticized the investigation findings. “Ultimately, the truth will come out,” she said.
Smith, a 14-year police officer, joined the Sandy Springs department in February 2006, after working for the city of Kennesaw police as an investigator.
Both Vaughan and Smith are represented by Jasper-based attorney Edwin Marger, who said Sandy Springs should have turned its internal police investigation over to state police authorities, if it wanted an impartial review. The internal probe began under former Police Chief Gene Wilson, and was then turned over to an independent investigator, the Charlotte-based U.S. ISS Agency, after city officials determined it had uncovered more widespread problems.
Wilson, the city department’s first police chief, resigned July 12, shortly after the agency completed its investigation. The city manager appointed Bertrand as acting chief the same day.
Vaughan’s commander, special operations Maj. James Moore, also has resigned in the wake of the investigation findings.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution