Police Chief Oscar Lewis seemed to learn more about his position security Tuesday evening, as city councilmen approved a “plan of action” for him to move forward in the wake of a consultant report that called for his resignation.
Consultant K.B. Turner, a certified law enforcement officer and head of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at the University of Memphis, issued a multi-faceted report on the police department to city councilmen Tuesday — one that included scathing criticism of Lewis’ leadership and a recommendation councilmen oust him.
The council announced the plan of action after an executive session that lasted about an hour. The plan’s specifics are still unclear, however. Mayor Robert Smith told The Dispatch after Tuesday’s meeting that he and city councilmen will monitor Lewis’ progress monthly. Smith declined to offer further details, citing personnel issues.
Lewis, in an emailed statement, thanked the council for its support.
“Tonight the city council was presented a plan of action for me as chief to take steps to further our department,” Lewis said. “These steps were findings of the recent department study conducted over the past six months. I welcome these steps as solid procedures to advance the services that we give our citizens while also supporting our officers.
“I appreciate the trust and encouragement of the Mayor and the City Council and the professional and kind way they have handled the results of this report,” he added. “The work on the plan of action is beginning immediately and I look forward to reporting on our progress together.”
Citizen support
The council’s decision comes after dozens of citizens came to Tuesday’s meeting in support of Lewis.
Rev. R.J. Matthews, pastor of Kingdom Visions International Church where Lewis attends, told the council he was “disturbed” by the recommendation to remove Lewis and he didn’t think it was the right time for the department to face another police chief change.
Matthews also noted the high turnover Columbus has had at the police chief position in the last five years — Columbus has had three chiefs and two interim chiefs during that span — and questioned if another change would fix the city’s problems.
“There’s no leader in this room that 100 percent of your constituency is in full support of what you do,” Matthews said. “Nobody here. And if you talk to the right people in any organization, depending on how you look at it, they’ll tell you the whole thing needs to be thrown away.”
Matthews contended Turner’s report didn’t mention Lewis has worked to implement community policing since his arrival. He said it didn’t account for things such as officers who are already involved in the community or Lewis’ working the streets when the police department’s manpower levels were perilously low.
He added that CPD’s drop in manpower at the end of 2016 wasn’t entirely Lewis’ fault.
“When leadership changes, there’s always going to be a fallout,” he said. “We needed some of those people to leave. Some of them need to leave now. That’s the truth. To make room those that understand that it takes following a vision and following leadership — anybody can claim that a person doesn’t have a vision when they’re not willing to follow.”
Derrick Jones, another member of Kingdom Visions who showed up to support Lewis, said he believes Lewis needs more time to improve the police department.
“He deserves a fair chance to make a difference in this city,” Jones said. “He never really had a chance. The city didn’t get to this state overnight, so he wasn’t going to be able to fix it overnight.”
Jones said Lewis supporters, who wore shirts with the message “I support CPD Chief Oscar Lewis/No one stands alone,” didn’t just come from Kingdom Visions, and represented a swath of the community. He said he felt that was important.
“It means a lot to the point that you can’t look at it through a certain lens,” he said. “You can’t look at it lopsided. You have to look at it and see these are some true, genuine people who are out here to support the chief.
“It’s not just our church,” Jones added. “Of course he goes to church with us, so everybody at our church — we’re gonna support him. But it’s not just our church members.”
Questioning survey results
Julie Parker, a city resident who’s active with neighborhood watches, said she took issue with Turner’s report.
She said the survey in the report, which received results from 139 respondents, didn’t represent a broad enough swath of the community. The survey responses showed, while people were generally happy with officers’ professionalism, community members expressed doubt about police leadership.
“Gentlemen, that’s 0.005 percent of our population,” she said. “When you look at the report and he talks about the ‘many’ and the ‘most’ in the report, please recognize that that’s 0.005 percent.”
Parker likewise questioned the police officer survey, which she said showed 12 to 15 officers were not happy.
“When I look at a report, I really want to see that it was driven by data that was meaningful,” she said. “I don’t think that the data that was collected for this evaluation was robust enough to make decisions on.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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