Thursday, September 17, 2009

SMPD officer terminated Tuesday.

City Manager Bill Shanahan has confirmed this morning that an SMPD officer was terminated Tuesday. However, he goes on to say that he can not give me any further details until "10 days after the investigation." What I am hearing, but have not confirmed, is that the terminated officer was most likely Bob Godley, formerly a deputy wiht the CCSO.. Godley, you may recall, was the commodore of BTW's vaunted riverine forces. Assuming that is true, I do not yet have details, however, I have an idea as to what is going on. I attended Monday night's city council meeting. During that meeting, during the public comments section, a black woman came to the podium and very cryptically told the story that her sister and brother-in-law had complained to the SMPD chief several times about their children being constantly harassed by two SMPD officers as they went about their normal activities in their neighborhood. She said they had gotten no action on their complaint. When the mayor asked the city manager, he said that he was aware of it and that there was, in fact, an investigation underway. Later, the council went into executive session. The firing came the next day. Time will tell if there is a connection. There may also be another related SMPD firing forthcoming.

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