Columbus is closing in on the end of its search for a police chief.
Councilmen will interview finalists for the job at 3 p.m. on Jan. 19 in the municipal complex on Main Street. Mayor Robert Smith has said he’d like to have a new chief selected by the first council meeting in February.
The search began in November, after former Police Chief Tony Carleton resigned from the post amidst the fallout of the Oct. 16 officer-involved shooting of Ricky Ball.
The council named CPD Capt. Fred Shelton interim chief after Carleton’s resignation.
In the time since Carleton’s resignation, the city received applications from 26 candidates. The council formed a special police chief search committee consisting of citizen representatives from each ward, city administrators, two aldermen and three Mississippi police chiefs to narrow the field to a few finalists.
The committee selected five finalists- North Chicago, Illinois Police Department commander Curtis W. Brame, Lovington, New Mexico assistant chief of police Geoffrey Herweg, Waynesboro police chief Oscar Lewis III, Moss Point police chief Arthur C. McClung and Shelton.
Herweg withdrew his name from consideration Thursday.
Profiles of the four remaining candidates appear in today’s Dispatch.
Smith, who said he’s been pleased with the overall process to this point, said he’s still happy with the four remaining candidates.
“We still have four good candidates,” Smith said. “Out of the four, three at the present time are serving as chief of police. (…) Each one of the candidates has a lot of law enforcement experience.”
With the high-tension Ball investigation still ongoing, Smith said it’s important for the council to gauge how candidates might handle further developments.
“Hopefully that will be one of the questions,” Smith said. “Have you dealt with any crises such as what the city of Columbus is dealing with now? Have you had to deal with a problem like it or how would you have dealt with it?”
Columbus’ police chief position has remained in flux since the council fired former chief Joe St. John in 2011. Selvain McQueen earned the job later that year, but retired in April 2014. The council named Carleton chief in June 2014 but he resigned in November. Carleton has since joined Oxford Police Department’s training division.
Several councilmen have alluded to wanting to stabilize the position with someone who will make a long-term commitment to the city. Smith said he wants the same.
“That’s one of the main objectives,” Smith said. “We want someone who’s not just here to build on their resume and retire. Hopefully we’ll find someone who wants the job and will plan on being here for some time.”
Candidates
Name: Curtis Brame
Age: Not provided
Current home: North Chicago, Illinois
Current position: Commander of Support Services at North Chicago Police Department
Law enforcement experience: 20 years with the North Chicago Police Department; Department of Defense Police Officer, Ft. Ord, California (1984-1985); Veteran’s Administration Police Officer, VA North Chicago (1981-1984); U.S. Army Military Criminal Investigator, Ft. Sheridan, IL (1979-1981); U.S. Army Military Police Officer, Panama Canal Zone (1977-1979)
Born and raised in Chicago, Curtis Brame has worked for the North Chicago Police Department since 1985. He joined after spending seven years as a police officer and investigator for the military in California and Panama. He has been a police officer his entire adult life.
The NCPD has 64 full-time police officers, 108 officers total, Brame said. The community he serves is a diverse community with a majority African American population. He estimated that it’s about 40,000 which he says is around the same size as Columbus. The city proper of Columbus has closer to 25,000 people.
The biggest issue that has faced his department since he began working at the NCPD is that budget cuts over the last decade have been gradually downsizing the police force.
Brame said he wants to be the police chief in Columbus because he is looking for a new challenge. He has researched Columbus and applied for positions there over the years and thinks the city would be a good fit for his family. He particularly believes the diversity of the community is something he can work with because of his experience in North Chicago.
The biggest issue currently facing the Columbus Police Department is the lack of trust between the department and the community since the shooting of Ricky Ball in October. The only way to repair that trust is to be transparent, he said. Police officers have to let people in the community they serve know what is going on and what the department is doing. Police are part of the community they serve, he stressed, and they need to be involved in that community.
“That’s the only way you’re going to get that trust factor, letting people know what you’re doing,” he said. “We always think that the police is an island unto itself and it’s not. It’s part of the community.”
Brame a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the former NCPD chief, Michael Newsome. He could not disclose much about the circumstances of the case to The Dispatch because the judge has placed him under a gag order. He admits to filing a lawsuit against the city. Appellate court documents from 2011 said Brame accused Newsome of retaliating against him for going to city officials with news of Newsome’s illegal activities.
Newsome currently faces charges for theft of government property and mis-allocation of funds, according to an article from The Chicago Tribune in July.
Brame wants the Columbus community to know he is trustworthy and hardworking and that he will work to be as fair as possible as Columbus Chief of Police.
“I’m looking forward to this opportunity to come there and serve the people,” he said.
Name: Oscar Lewis III
Age: 46
Current home: Waynesboro, Mississippi
Current position: Chief of Police, Waynesboro Police Department
Law enforcement experience: Waynesboro Police Department (2014-present); Columbus Police Department (1994-2014)
For Oscar Lewis, the open police chief position is a chance to come home.
Lewis, who currently serves as chief of police for the Waynesboro Police Department, started his law enforcement career in Columbus after finishing an 11-year tenure with the U.S. Air Force. He said he met his wife in Columbus and decided to settle down.
Lewis said his family still lives in Columbus, though he lives in Waynesboro. The family ties, he said, are pulling him back to the city.
“With my family living down there and things going the way they are with crime and everything, it made sense to try and come back and to contribute,” Lewis said.
Lewis spent 20 years (1994-2014) with CPD. He started as a patrolman and worked up through the ranks. Later duties included time as a narcotics agent, citizen police academy coordinator, internal affairs investigator and, most recently, a patrol shift commander.
He started working as Waynesboro Police Chief in April 2014.
Lewis acknowledged a few hurdles face CPD for whoever the city council names to the open position. A lack of public trust, he said, is one of the biggest ones facing the department.
“With the recent (Ricky Ball) shooting, I think that was really the catalyst that set things in motion,” Lewis said. “Before that, just the lack of trust maybe in the police department or what was going on in the police department really helped bring us to where we are. That’s just me from the outside looking in.”
In order to build trust, Lewis said officers have to get out and meet the people in the community. He alluded that’s hard for law enforcement to properly serve a community without knowing the people it’s serving.
He said he’s developed a reputation for doing things “by the books” and running a tight ship with his shift.
“It wasn’t always the most popular thing with the officers, of course, but I’m just trying to keep the city from being sued, and myself and the department,” he said. “It’s all about accountability.”
MBI is still investigating the Ricky Ball shooting. Lewis said he would feel comfortable stepping into a high-tension, potentially volatile situation as a new chief, if the council selects him.
“I think my reputation in Columbus speaks for itself,” he said. “I’ve always treated people fairly, the way I would want to be treated. I don’t take pleasure in arresting people. But, at the end of the day I treat people like human beings should be treated.”
Waynesboro is a city of about 5,000 people according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city’s police force is likely smaller than that of Columbus, which has 54 full-time officers for a population of about 23,000 people. Though Waynesboro’s force is likely smaller than Columbus’, Lewis declined to say how big his police force is when The Dispatch asked.
“The duties are no different,” he said. “Whether it’s a 10-man department, a 20-man department, you’re still doing the same thing and are responsible for the same thing.”
Name: Arthur McClung III
Age: 43
Current home: Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Current position: Chief of Police at Moss Point Police Department
Law enforcement experience: Deputy Chief of Police and Chief of Police at Moss Point Police Department; 4 years as Chief Investigator/Fugitive Investigator at MDOC; 8 years with the Pearl Police Department; 3 years as patrolman with Columbus Police Department
Born in Detroit, Mich., Arthur McClung spent his summers in Columbus, Miss. where he had family. While serving in the military between 1991-1995, he was stationed at Columbus Air Force Base, and he studied at East Mississippi Community College and Mississippi University for Women. He met a former Columbus detective who encouraged him to become a police officer in Columbus. Since then, he has worked in the Pearl Police Department and the State Department of Corrections, served on the United States Marshall Task Force and worked as an internal affairs investigator. He also attended the FBI National Academy in 2009.
He began working at the Moss Point Police Department (MPPD) in 2012 when the then-police chief asked him to help clean up the department.
“It was a department that was really bad,” McClung said. “The public didn’t have a lot of trust in the department.
Moss Point is a community of about 15,000 people, but McClung said at least 100,000 people-a-day travel through it because three major highways touch the city. Ingalls Shipbuilding and a Chevron refinery are also a few miles from the city. The MPPD has 34 sworn officers along with several reserve officers and other employees.
“I didn’t have any plans to stay here and become chief, but … when the Lord has a plan for your life, you never know,” McClung said.
To clean up the MPPD and rekindle the trust between the department and its citizens, McClung hired a recently retired FBI agent with experience as an internal affairs investigator.
“It was great that I had somebody who didn’t have ties here to come in and be objective about everything,” McClung said. “Because we wanted to make sure that our department was cleaned up. You have to look inside first.”
McClung also received a grant to start programs for at-risk youth and expanded National Night Out, a national program once a year in which police departments around the country plan events for the citizens. He replaced the Halloween Haunted House with a Harvest Festival in downtown Moss Point which has grown each year. He started a program in which officers go to schools and read to students.
In March of 2013, Moss Point also had a police shooting similar to the shooting of Ricky Ball in Columbus last October. The MPPD immediately notified the FBI and state agencies and opened an internal investigation.
“You have to be transparent,” he said.
McClung says he now wants to bring his experience back to Columbus, which he thinks of as home and help repair the relationship between the Columbus Police Department and citizens. If he becomes Columbus Police Chief, he wants to meet with citizens, hear their concerns and work to address the problems they bring up.
“I’m a God-fearing man who wants to come home and make them proud of the Columbus Police Department,” he said.
Name: Fred Shelton
Age: 56
Current home: Columbus, Mississippi
Current position: Interim Chief of Police at the Columbus Police Department
Law enforcement experience: 27 years at the Columbus Police Department; Interim Chief of Police, appointed October 2015; Captain of Uniform Patrol Division, 2001-2015; Lieutenant/Commander Community Oriented Policing Team (1997-2001)
Interim Columbus Police Chief Fred Shelton has worked as a full-time officer at the Columbus Police Department since November of 1983. Born and raised in Chicago,
Shelton became a military policeman while serving in the U.S. Army. He still works part time as a military policeman, training soldiers to train policemen in Afghanistan. He also works as a volunteer chaplain at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle one weekend a month.
In 1995, he became the commander of the first Community Policing Unit in Columbus, which started neighborhood watch programs and brought National Night Out to the city.
“I don’t view community policing as a program,” he said. “I view it as a philosophy which says that everybody, every officer has a responsibility to work with the community to resolve issues and to … get things done.”
The biggest issue facing the CPD right now is the retention of officers, Shelton said. With 54 full-time officers, the department is about 14 officers short given its budget. Shelton added that a majority of the CPD’s officers are not from Columbus.
“What we want to do is get people who live in Columbus, Mississippi who want to become police officers,” he said.
Shelton plans to hold workshops not only to recruit officers but to help applicants by giving them an overview of the requirements and giving them tips on passing the physical fitness exam and making a good impression at interviews. He said the department can do more active recruiting at the Air Force Base, Mississippi University for Women and Mississippi State University. He added it’s important to have a diverse force who can work with a community that is majority African American and growing Hispanic and Asian American populations. It’s also important to have female officers, he said, particularly when dealing with crimes like rape.
Shelton also said the CPD needs to repair the trust that was damaged after Ricky Ball was shot was a police officer in October. The lack of information about the case in the days following the shooting was a mistake, he said.
The CPD has started using social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to keep citizens up to date not just on criminal activity but on traffic.
“We’re giving real-time information,” Shelton said. “We’re giving accurate information, which is something we weren’t doing prior to the Ricky Ball incident.”
Every two weeks between now and the conclusion of the investigation, Shelton said, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation will update Shelton on the Ricky Ball shooting investigation and Shelton will report that to the city council.
Shelton also stressed the importance of body cameras. Had the officers at the scene had their cameras on when Ricky Ball was shot, there would have been no speculation as to the circumstances of the shooting. The department has gone over body camera policies with its officers who from now on will be trained on the use of the cameras once a year.
“The cameras now are just as important as an officer carrying his duty weapon,” Shelton said.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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