By Sonja Lewis
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
March 29, 2001
(Grantville, GA) - Grantville is looking for a police chief to restore pride in a department whose top cops’ competence repeatedly has been questioned.
With the recent firing of Jerry Davison, the city has had four chiefs in the last decade.
At least twice in the last six years, the department has had only one officer patrolling the city of 1,800. The department has had up to six officers in the past.
The department now has three full-time officers.
The hope, said Grantville Mayor Billy Tucker, is a new chief will heighten the department’s professionalism.
In the city’s favor, he said, is as of late last week more than two dozen people applied for the job, many with solid law-enforcement backgrounds.
“That’s a good sign, sure enough,” Tucker said. “If (the police department) had a real bad name, I’m not sure we’d be getting those kind of applicants.”
Davison was fired in February after the department was evaluated by two Peachtree City officers.
Among the findings:
Davison is “derelict in his duties by failing to provide . . . proper leadership and administration.”
Officers hadn’t been sworn in.
A weapon was removed from an evidence room and given to an officer as a duty gun.
The police department doesn’t keep track of the cash it receives.
The department doesn’t properly log and process evidence.
Davison, 65, unsuccessfully appealed his firing.
He took issue with several of the findings, including evidence management and the absence of policies and procedures.
“I could have done it better,” he said of recording and tracking evidence. “But when you work 60 to 62 hours a week, you do the best you can with the time you have.”
Davison said he sought guidance from the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office and the district attorney who told him it was OK to give a gun in the evidence room to an officer who was without one. The town doesn’t pay to arm officers.
Many of the problems identified could have been alleviated if the town granted funding requests for officers, equipment and training, he said.
Davison said he should have had the opportunity at the guidance of the council to first implement policies and then make corrections based on them.
“It would seem I’m being terminated for failing to abide by nonexistent policies,” he said.
Davison was chief for almost four years. The three before him either were fired or quit. “I stayed longer than most of them, so that tells you there is something wrong somewhere,” he said.
Former Grantville Chief J.C. Doler defended Davison in a letter turned over to the Town Council. “The evaluators only saw part of the problem,” he wrote. “But did they see where the police committee never came to offer assistance to Chief Davison or to inquire of any needs of the police department? Did they see any councilmen giving Chief Davison instructions on what to do and what not to do? . . . A police department can not adapt to changes when the stumbling block is the city government in which they are employed.”
The council’s public discussion so far on the firing has been limited, as members cite the action as a personnel issue.
Tucker declined to say who ordered an outside evaluation or why, but he said it wasn’t a decision made in haste.
Last Friday was the deadline for accepting applications, and the town could start narrowing the field of applicants this week, said City Manager Doug Bennett.
2000 LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights Reserved.