Police chiefs resigning/fired all over the country

While perusing some videos this morning on LiveLeak I stumbled upon an interesting post that alludes to the fact that a rather large number of Police Chiefs across the US are resigning or being fired.

The poster (okfllying) mentions that there is nothing about it on Snopes (confirmed). The poster provides a rather long list of towns and municipalities he received in a email identifying locales where there has been a sudden changing of the guard. He says that he confirmed the first four on the list as well as Tulsa Ok.

I selected a few in the longer list to check and by either going to the cities official websites or googling the name of the Police Chief confirmed several announcements of "new" Chief of Police or the announced retirement of the current Chief.

Why? Okfllving ponders:

I can only guess at what the reason is. Someone cracked the national pedophilia ring (if that was the case there would be beaucoup judges too)? Obama is cleaning house of all who might resist a federal martial martial law takeover? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's the list... the first 4 and Tulsa are verified:

File it under "Weird" because it does seem to be just that. Do we have a number of senior LEO's who have been made privy to information/directives that they somehow can't stomach or could there be something on the radar screen that makes personal matters more important than careers.

Here's a partial list, follow the link for the entire posting. Is this simply coincidence or something else?
LiveLeak.com

10. Oroville, CA 11. Burlington City, PA 12. Bellmead, TX 13. Bridgeport, WV 14. Gaston, ID 15. Meigs, GA 16. Independence, LA 17. Miami, FL 18. Britt, IA 19. Nickerson, KS 20. New Holland, PA 21. Navarre, OH 22. Glocester, RI 23. Lithonia, GA 24. Harrison, NY 25. Huntsville, AL 26. Moose Lake, MN 27. Boxborough, MA 28. Sutton, WV 29. Itta Bena, MS 30. St. Cloud, FL 31. Menomonie, WI 32. Fanwood, NJ 33. Morton's Gap, KY 34. New Haven, CT 35. Guttenberg, IA 36. South Amboy, NJ 37. Santa Cruz, CA 38. Bakersfield, CA 39. South Pasadena, CA 40. Tulsa, OK 41. Hastings, MN 42. Stamford, CT 43. Dallas, TX 44. Somerville, MA 45. Greensboro, NC 46. Avon, CO 47. Benton, IL 48. Nogales, AZ 49. West Tisbury, MA 50. Gainesville, GA 51. Anniston, AL 52. West Richland, WA 53. Watford City, ND 54. Ponce Inlet, FL 55. Clearwater, FL 56. Monmouth, ME 57. Brookfield, IL 58. Ludowici, GA 59. Orland, CA 60. Springfield, NJ 61. Holt, MO 62. Brookneal, VA 63. Chesterton, IN 64. Edina, MN 65. Birmingham, MI 66. Montebello, CA 67. Vonore, TN 68. Ventnor, NJ 69. New Hartford, NY 70. Kennedy, AL

If the trend continues what could we be seeing take shape? Thoughts anyone?





Mod edit: Caps removed. Please see The use of All Caps Thank you - Jak

[edit on 10/2/10 by JAK]

reply to post by CmdrZero


I have been hearing about police stations being closed down due to
money problems.The towns,who close their police stations,have contracted
to the county sheriff for law enforcement.

reply to post by CmdrZero


There's roughly 20,000 cities and towns in the U.S., so I would imagine the list will always have names on it.

I see Dallas on there, he announced his retirement like 6 months ago.

Chesterton, IN-

Resigned- Steve Bickner

"Brickner, for his part, resigned on Jan. 8, citing differences of opinion with some council members about CPD policy." quote from article

Link:
chestertontribune.com...

I just may look into this or get a hold of Mr. Bickner

Hard to say. I know there's been alot of corruption as the status quo for many years with local police...perhaps they are simply cleaning house..of course, speculation far and wide could be made of it.


I guess it would be better to take a case by case basis approach and find a pattern...if it is typically seen that these chiefs have the highest corruption areas, then it would lead to a simple housecleaning effort and internal clampdown.

Originally posted by mamabeth
reply to post by CmdrZero

 

I have been hearing about police stations being closed down due to
money problems.The towns,who close their police stations,have contracted
to the county sheriff for law enforcement.

The county sheriff is the only "real" lawman. The city police, state troopers, FBI, etc. are corporate enforcers, that's it. They are replacing anyone in a power position who is not with the agenda. This is one more notch ratcheting tighter on the chokehold on all of us. This sounds like a runup for martial law, anyone who they think will not arrest and shoot their own neighbors are being forced out and strangers with only corporate loyalties are brought in. Get ready!

If I'm not mistaken, most law-enforcement folks can retire at 55 and I suspect a lot of boomers are turning 55 or have already reached 55+...so the situation is probably to be expected.

There was a report several years ago that talked about a "coming wave" of FAA retirements that was going to affect that organization - and again, it was just the nature of the beast that many of the air-traffic controllers were nearly the same age...so I wouldn't read too much into it.

Most police, sheriff and fire departments have mandatory age retirement, I can speak for my ex husband, he was a fire chief, 25 years or 50 years of age they can retire, off hand I don't remember the official age but it isn't 65, much younger. He retired at 55.

Houston, TX police chief resigned. However, it was because they elected a new mayor that wanted him replaced. Perhaps a lot of these are the same reason. Political appointees are always at risk when the new boss comes in. I wonder how many of these cities just elected new mayors.

Ok Folks....The Only Example of the actual person and story say's plain as day in the article.

He resigned over disagreement's with Policy....

So it wasn't age or political party. It was over policy. So that's one, lets look into the rest.

L.A.'s police chief unexpectedly resigned in October. Check out the award he received, as a CTer it does make you wonder....maybe he couldn't be bought? Just speculating of course!

From Wikipedia:

William Joseph "Bill" Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) was the chief of police of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He previously served as the New York City Police Commissioner and Boston Police Commissioner.

On September 11, 2009, he was awarded with the honorary title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.[1] In early August 2009, Bratton unexpectedly announced that effective October 31, 2009, he would resign his position as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A lot of baby boomers are reaching that age where retirement looks very good.

I think that being a police chief is probably a big pain.

Compare living that life versus retiring.

To me, this wouldn't be a hard choice, especially with some of the retirement packages that are available to those chiefs.

If this is really happening en masse as opposed the numbers being the results of natural evolution, it might be pressure from above to have people resign voluntarily rather than face recrimination and charges.

My guess us the job is getting a lot tougher with the rotten economy. More crime, even the criminalized junkies must be feeling the pinch.

A good time to cash out with one's life intact and sanity.


M

Originally posted by mamabeth
reply to post by CmdrZero

 

I have been hearing about police stations being closed down due to
money problems.The towns,who close their police stations,have contracted
to the county sheriff for law enforcement.

Yeah, I agree there, our own town now has no police officers, and no 9-1-1 desk. This is handled by the sheriff's office 8 miles away. We can read a lot into it, but money is always the deciding factor. TPTB are breaking our collective backs with an economy crash, our money is quickly becoming worthless. Soon a new form of money will be announced. I really think the plan, the agenda, will be to force martial law upon us and take over all industry and infrastructure. The rise of the Fourth Reich. Many have warned us this was coming.

I agree with everything I've read so far. The thing that caught my eye was the size of the towns. A few large metro areas but, for the most part, small towns under, say, 20,000 people.

After 911 the Fed pumped the small towns full of grant money to beef up their departments so the lack of funds may be the case in some towns but not so much for the others unless HS and the JD have quietly withdrawn funding.

Also, being from a rural area I know that a lot of these kinds of positions are damned near what you'd call lifetime appointments. The good old boy networks are alive and well and so long as you're connected you do ok. Not to mention that in a lot of small towns the police department and city hall are about the only jobs to be had so to see the positions of Police Chief surrendered is kind of amazing (and some of these guys keep the jobs until they die of old age).

Mentioned by a poster above is the small number of burgs on the list. I agree. Not exactly representative of the nation on a whole so you'd expect to see turnover in a percentage under the best of conditions but like I've already said, once somebody climbs aboard the gravy train and makes it to the top he's hard to get rid of- voluntarily at least.

What I'm hoping to do here is to get a lot of eyes focused in their local communities to see if this is a slowly developing national trend or nothing at all. Considering the way Uncle is trying to federalize the nations police it merits watching. If a lot of these guys are starting to bail out we may have something on the horizon that you wouldn't want to catch you by surprise.

Lets face it, a lot of people are going to be losing everything this year. Crime can be expected to skyrocket and while that may be the reason some of these guys are leaving now it's also a good time to see more federal dollars pumped into local economies which means more gravy.

I hope that a lot of you folks keep an eye out for sudden retirements and terminations in your areas. If you'll U2U me I'll keep an unofficial list of where they're happening. If it merits I'll start graphing the results and post links to the info.

reply to post by CmdrZero


I think you're right. Here in Washington there have been a number of resignations. What is happening is that due to budget cuts, departments are merging and one of the top guys is left out of a job.

The other thing that is happening here is that there is a lot of gang activity and its growing. The local chief is getting pressure to handle the gang problem absent any legitimate resources from the state or local tax payers. A number of them have requested that the county take on the gang policing and have been turned down.

In some of these cases it is a gent who does not want to be the scapegoat when something terrible happens. Many of these guys can also get better jobs in private security

Originally posted by Signals
There's roughly 20,000 cities and towns in the U.S., so I would imagine the list will always have names on it.

I see Dallas on there, he announced his retirement like 6 months ago.

I agree. I would be surprised to see NO cities with police chiefs changing jobs (sometimes they leave to get better jobs or get hired by a bigger city). Sometimes there are criminal or civil charges against them, but lots of times it's retirement or another job offer or even illness.

reply to post by SunnyDee

William Joseph "Bill" Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) was the chief of police of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He previously served as the New York City Police Commissioner and Boston Police Commissioner.

Are you aware that he was seriously being consider for the top cop position he held in Boston,New York and L.A. to run Scotland Yard?

Bratten denies Scotland Yard rumors.

He hangs around long enough to get the golden parachute and then runs off.

People in those positions work at the discretion of the city council and mayor.

Many end up in other city's hired to replace others who resigned.

It is unusual how one or two may cause others to do the same thing.

I wonder how many will end up working for Homeland Security?

Good Federal job with a really good retirement.

[edit on 10-2-2010 by Oneolddude]

Originally posted by mmiichael

If this is really happening en masse as opposed the numbers being the results of natural evolution, it might be pressure from above to have people resign voluntarily rather than face recrimination and charges.

My guess us the job is getting a lot tougher with the rotten economy. More crime, even the criminalized junkies must be feeling the pinch.

A good time to cash out with one's life intact and sanity.


M

My thinking also, maybe these chiefs are seeing the writing on the wall and wanting to get their retirement locked in before changes happen to curtail the public pensions of state and federal govt.. Also wasn't there a massive pedophile ring bust in the US and around the world last month?

Not sure if this has been added.

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