The average police force probably has quite a bit of drama. But nothing like this. Small-town politics, I guess...
That's because Cohutta, a small town in Georgia, has just faced a pretty big scandal. Because, as reported by Dexerto, Mayor Ron Shinnick made the insane decision to fire all 10 police department employees. That's right, every single one of them. This meant that the town had to entirely rely on the county sheriff's office. Not ideal at all, right?
But you've got to be wondering... why? Well, tensions had been bubbling for a pretty long time between the mayor and the council. His wife, Pam Shinnick, used to be a town clerk, but she had recently left the role. But officers had alleged she had access to really sensitive data like payroll and municipal systems.
Former Sgt. Jeremy May said that everything boiled down to "a personal vendetta from the mayor." He explained that "we took a stand for transparency and in result, every one of them has lost their jobs."
However, Mayor Shinnick said that he didn't dissolve the police force for no good reason. His reasoning was that officers had, in his words, made some "inappropriate comments" toward his wife on social media.
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The Town Reinstated The Whole Police Force After the Debacle
Things were very recently fixed. Town attorney Bryan Rayburn explained that Shinnick's actions violated the town charter.
More specifically, he had violated the rule that says there should be a 30-day notice period before town employees can be removed from their posts.
And the way they got their jobs back was pretty wild. According to the AP, Shinnick didn't end up coming back to the meeting after the council went into an "executive session" to discuss things.
So, Vice Mayor Shane Kornberg had to take over. Under his guidance, the council reinstated the police officers and put a cap on Shinnick's power. He's now not allowed to fire the police officers for the next month.
Even crazier, the council then tabled the rest of the meeting's agenda "for the foreseeable future." This involved removing Shinnick from the loop entirely.
