I work in a medium sized town, have been on the job for over 22 years. Department is 14 sworn. A few years ago, I had a call to a residence -- some guy was calling AAA to have a car moved, drunk. Arrived on scene and tried to figure out the story, since he wasn't the resident -- he told me that he was a guest of the resident. So I had him wake up the resident (a lawyer in town) and his wife to verify that he was allowed to be there. The resident offered to take him inside to bed, but I was already annoyed with the guy, so we cited for alcohol intox and disorderly and took the guy to jail.
Fast forward, and the resident got elected to the city council later that year -- a buddy of mine on the city council tells me that he mentioned something about being upset with me for the incident, but I didn't think anything of it.
Fast forward two years, and the same guy took on the mayor who had been there 17 years and won. The chief was also serving additional duty as the city manager and he resigned to take a job with the county when the new mayor came in -- the rumors were that the new mayor showed him the door, but also helped him get a job at the county. The new mayor is really good friends with the county prosecutor, and I might have gotten into a few arguments over the years with the prosecutor so that isn't helpful.
I figured that the new mayor would hire within, I wanted the chief's job, and suggested at the january city council meeting that he needed to appoint an interim chief (there are two sergeants on the department). The mayor said he didn't want to do that and would hire the new chief quickly, and we had a bit of an argument at the meeting. It got back to me that the new mayor was really ****ed that I went against what he wanted to do at the city council meeting.
In any event, after the chief left, I basically ordered some new patches for the PD and some new dress white uniform shirts for the department -- I probably should have told the mayor about it, since I needed his signature for the order under city purchasing policies, but we'd been talking about it as a department for a year and I just went ahead with the order since I didn't really want to see the Mayor and have him get more upset with me.
The new Mayor promoted a patrolman over both of us sergeants as captain and interim chief and said that all uniform changes were on hold. He came in and set down a bunch of rules for the department at the same time in January (told the guys to stop hanging out at the local gas station for hours at a time). As for the uniforms, I figured that didn't include orders that were already placed. Then he hired a new chief from outside the department.
Then the new chief found out about the orders and asked me to provide a written statement. I messed up and said that the old chief authorized it (the old chief knew we were going there but didn't actually authorize the purchase). Then the Mayor and new Chief got a sworn statement from the old chief that he didn't authorize the purchase the next day (I didn't have time to get in touch with the old chief before they got the statement). The new Chief and Captain have some sort of IA investigation going. I think I'm in big trouble.
Does anyone see a way to avoid losing my career over this or have any ideas about what to do? I know I made a mistake with the statement. I just don't know what to do to get out of this and it doesn't help that the Mayor really doesn't like me. We don't have civil service, but do have PO bill of rights.
Fast forward, and the resident got elected to the city council later that year -- a buddy of mine on the city council tells me that he mentioned something about being upset with me for the incident, but I didn't think anything of it.
Fast forward two years, and the same guy took on the mayor who had been there 17 years and won. The chief was also serving additional duty as the city manager and he resigned to take a job with the county when the new mayor came in -- the rumors were that the new mayor showed him the door, but also helped him get a job at the county. The new mayor is really good friends with the county prosecutor, and I might have gotten into a few arguments over the years with the prosecutor so that isn't helpful.
I figured that the new mayor would hire within, I wanted the chief's job, and suggested at the january city council meeting that he needed to appoint an interim chief (there are two sergeants on the department). The mayor said he didn't want to do that and would hire the new chief quickly, and we had a bit of an argument at the meeting. It got back to me that the new mayor was really ****ed that I went against what he wanted to do at the city council meeting.
In any event, after the chief left, I basically ordered some new patches for the PD and some new dress white uniform shirts for the department -- I probably should have told the mayor about it, since I needed his signature for the order under city purchasing policies, but we'd been talking about it as a department for a year and I just went ahead with the order since I didn't really want to see the Mayor and have him get more upset with me.
The new Mayor promoted a patrolman over both of us sergeants as captain and interim chief and said that all uniform changes were on hold. He came in and set down a bunch of rules for the department at the same time in January (told the guys to stop hanging out at the local gas station for hours at a time). As for the uniforms, I figured that didn't include orders that were already placed. Then he hired a new chief from outside the department.
Then the new chief found out about the orders and asked me to provide a written statement. I messed up and said that the old chief authorized it (the old chief knew we were going there but didn't actually authorize the purchase). Then the Mayor and new Chief got a sworn statement from the old chief that he didn't authorize the purchase the next day (I didn't have time to get in touch with the old chief before they got the statement). The new Chief and Captain have some sort of IA investigation going. I think I'm in big trouble.
Does anyone see a way to avoid losing my career over this or have any ideas about what to do? I know I made a mistake with the statement. I just don't know what to do to get out of this and it doesn't help that the Mayor really doesn't like me. We don't have civil service, but do have PO bill of rights.
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