Selvain McQueen has received a lot of criticism as interim Columbus police chief, but he said he does get phone calls of praise and gratitude.
“I think there is a vast majority that are quite pleased with the turnaround that has taken place. In fact, I get calls every day from different people expressing their gratitude,” he said in a face-to-face interview Wednesday.
“There is also a faction of citizenry, I don’t care where you’re at, that they wouldn’t be happy if Jesus came back.”
McQueen, former head of the Columbus Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, has held the role of interim Columbus police chief since July and is one of the five finalists for the permanent police chief position.
There are a number of reasons some residents have criticized McQueen in recent weeks.
Some have skeptically noted the city’s changing of the qualifications for the permanent chief position from college degree “required” to “preferred.” McQueen, who does not have a degree, accumulated 116 credit hours toward a Mass Communications degree at Jackson State University. However, he makes up for the lack of a degree with law enforcement experience, training and “street savvy,” he said.
Others are critical due to McQueen’s filing of a number of Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against the city and city officials.
“The reason I filed EEOC complaints is that I believed I had been discriminated against because of my race. In addition, I’ve utilized the process available to me to seek redress of this grievance,” he said.
McQueen said he filed a grievance with the city stemming from his removal as head of the Criminal Investigations Division, and then he filed a complaint after being moved to the Building Inspection Department.
In 2005, McQueen filed a new EEOC complaint “claiming he was denied reimbursement (for a management training course he attended) by (former Police Chief J.D.) Sanders in retaliation for the (first) EEOC charge and because of his race,” court documents said.
McQueen said he was attending the Certified Public Managers program and another city employee, a firefighter, did not have to pay while McQueen “had to pay for everything out of my pocket.”
“Everything was approved for (the other city employee) to complete level six; that was the final level. He drove a city of Columbus Fire Department car down; he had his tuition paid,” he said.
McQueen filed a second amended complaint in May 2006, adding Sanders and former Mayor Jeffrey Rupp to the document, alleging defamatory comments were made during an executive session of the city council.
There are others who criticize McQueen due to the three homicides that occurred in a five-day span in September. McQueen would only say they are being investigated and police have suspects in all three.
However, he wants citizens to know that there is no way to keep some people from committing crimes.
“If someone wants to kill someone, if someone wants to rob someone and they make up in their mind that they’re going to do it, then they’re doing to do it,” he said.
“Now, with that thought in mind, for the individual who is borderline or sitting on the fence and trying to make that hard decision whether or not they should do this, here is the deterrent for the city of Columbus. You have three choices: You can stop committing crimes; you can move to another jurisdiction; or you can go to jail. Those are your options, and I’m not backing down from that.”
McQueen does not know what his reaction would be if he did not get appointed the permanent Columbus police chief.
McQueen, who has more than 23 years of law enforcement experience and has worked in each department within the CPD except for the Narcotics Division, said he might be disappointed if he is not chosen to be the permanent police chief but it will be his “assumption that God did not intend me to be chief of police.”
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