The Associated Press
CHAFFEE, Mo. (AP) -- City officials in this southeast Missouri town of about 3,000 say it’s unclear why half of its six-person police department -- including the chief -- have resigned in the past month, leaving Chaffee scrambling to find replacements.
City Administrator John Chadd said none of the resignation letters from Police Chief Larry Corn, Sgt. David Ivester and Cpl. Wayne Hampton included a reason.
Corn, whose resignation takes effect later this month, declined to offer insights into the matter Thursday, saying “things that have happened here just need to die.”
“The department and the community need to go on,” he said in a telephone interview from the police department in this town southwest of Cape Girardeau. “Things have been worked out well enough where we can start anew and go from there.”
When asked to help put to rest the public mystery over the resignations, Corn replied, “I don’t want to be a rumor starter, and I don’t want to carry on a story or ill feelings. I’m moving on.”
Hampton and Ivester have unlisted home telephone numbers and were unreachable for comment Thursday. A message left for them at the Chaffee Police Department was not immediately returned, as was a message left at Mayor Bill Cannon’s home.
Chaffee’s City Council will address the resignations at its meeting Monday and eventually appoint an interim police chief, Chadd said.
“We’re recruiting for a chief right now,” Chadd said.
A replacement for Hampton starts Jan. 23, though the department will find itself down an officer and a chief when Ivester leaves on Jan. 28 and Corn departs on Jan. 30.
Scott County sheriff’s Capt. Jerry Bledsoe said his department would assist Chaffee, though such help has not yet been requested.
Bledsoe said the sheriff’s department helped run the Chaffee force in 1996 when the department was without a chief.