FOREST PARK, Ga. -- Long-time Forest Park Police Chief Dwayne Hobbs was fired on Monday at the city council's regular meeting on Monday.
The decision was made by a 3-2 council vote and supported by Forest Park Mayor Angelyne Butler.
"For seven years, I have listened to the complaints from the police department and a lot of officers were leaving," city council member Latresa Akins-Wells said of the vote. "But pay had nothing to do with it."
Akins-Wells said she and the rest of the council wanted to go in a different direction and didn't want to just terminate Hobbs even though she said they had cause to do so. Hobbs had been with the department for 45 years - more than 20 as police chief.
Akins-Wells said that in executive sessions that Hobbs and the city had been working out details that would have involved Hobbs retiring and receiving a severance package. She said, upon resignation, Hobbs could have received pay for up to 18 months along with a year of benefits and having a building named after him. She said that details were leaked to the public before the contract was finalized.
"So, once that came out, we just decided and we knew Chief Hobbs was behind it," she said. "We just decided that we didn't even want to go along with an agreement."
But council member Sandra Bagley said she believes that the chief of police should have been given some sort of severance package as part of his exit.
"He should walk away with at least his retirement," she said. "He has given 45 years of service to this city and has also given 22 of those years as police chief."
She added that it was a disservice comparing it to another person on the city payroll.
"I've got a gentleman who works in public works that has been here a long time," she said. "I wouldn't want to see him lose his job with no benefits, no package, no anything - no retirement."
But Akins-Wells said the environment at the department was part of what led to his termination.
"The officers have to meet a quota and if they didn't, they were written up or disciplined in some kind of way," she said. "The employees in the police department feeling like they were working in a hostile environment and nothing was being done about it."
She added that he was "never there" and that his assistant ran the department.
Bagley, however, said she hadn't heard similar complaints or any concrete examples that would give her a reason to vote for the chief's termination.
The mayor and city manager didn't personally respond to messages on Tuesday about the termination. But in a statement, from the city, they announced that:
The Mayor and Council directed the City Manager to terminate the services of Dwayne Hobbs as the Chief of Police for the City of Forest Park.
In the release, Captain Jason Armstrong was named as interim police chief until a new chief can be selected. They plan a nationwide search to make that selection.
While Bagley voted against the chief's firing, she said that, moving forward, she supports a nationwide search for the next chief of police - but added there are talented individuals already on-staff with the department that should also be considered.
"I feel like, with anything, you should open it up, you put a bigger net out you get different backgrounds," Bagley said. "We might very well need someone who hasn’t been in the city previously that can come in to bring some bright ideas, some new ideas."
But she added that it shouldn't have been done at the expense of Hobbs, the ousted chief.
