For law enforcement agents, each day comes with countless interactions with citizens.
Some of those interactions go better than others. In fact, as rare an occurrence as it may be, some result in citizen complaints against officers.
Chief Deputy Marc Miley said the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office has fielded about 20 formal complaints against its deputies over the last two years, ranging from accusing deputies of being rude on traffic stops to citizens claiming they were wrongfully arrested.
Of those, Miley estimated only 10 to 15 percent result in officer discipline — anything from an internal reprimand kept in a deputy’s file to possible suspension or termination.
Still, complaints are something Miley said LCSO takes very seriously.
“If there is a complaint against an officer and it is a legitimate complaint, I want to know about it,” Miley said. “I don’t mind. Come in. File the report. File the paperwork. Let us look into it. If you have been unjustly treated, rudely, like that, we’d like to know.”
Pending complaint
The most recent complaint made against the LCSO involved Cody Nickoles, who deputies detained one night in late November after they said he refused to cooperate with them.
He claims deputies detained him without cause.
Nickoles said he was on his way to pick up his sister and her boyfriend, who had run out of gas on the side of the road in New Hope. He picked them up, took them to get gas and then drove back to where they’d left the vehicle, which Nickoles admitted was jutting out into the road.
When they saw a deputy standing by the vehicle, the boyfriend, to whom the vehicle belonged, asked to be taken home because he didn’t want to talk to officers.
Nickoles did so and then came back to put gas in the car, where two deputies asked him who owned the vehicle and why he had driven by them.
“I said, ‘Sir … whoever rides in my vehicle is my business,'” Nickoles told The Dispatch.
One of the deputies then handcuffed Nickoles — refusing, Nickoles said, to tell him why he was being arrested or what he had done wrong. Nickoles ended up spending the evening in jail and was charged with disobeying a police officer.
The official report, which the deputies filed, says Nickoles’ sister acted nervous when deputies asked her who owned the vehicle and that Nickoles told the deputies it was “none of their f****** business.” He then refused to comply with deputies’ orders to stand against the vehicle and wouldn’t cooperate when they tried to handcuff him, the deputies reported.
Trying to ‘calm the situation’
Miley confirmed that Nickoles’ complaint, which was filed a few days after the incident.
Complainants must come to the sheriff’s office to report what happened while an officer fills out a report, Miley said. The complainant then signs it and the report goes first to the lieutenant of the deputy in question, then to Miley, and ultimately to Sheriff Mike Arledge who determines whether there should be an investigation.
Complaints vary in severity and content, Miley said. Plenty of people say officers were unnecessarily rude. Others complain because they were arrested — or because someone else wasn’t arrested. Miley’s even had complaints that officers sat too long in one area talking on their cell phone.
Miley chalks many of the complaints to situations occasionally becoming tense when deputies are doing their jobs.
“We have to have, at times, a harsh tone with people,” Miley said. “(If) you’ve called 911 … we’re there to help. But when you’ve got two people arguing, and you’re telling them to be quiet or you’re telling them ‘Ya’ll need to calm down’ and they won’t calm down, we have to raise our voice to calm people down. People take that as ‘Oh, he was so rude to me.’ He wasn’t being rude. He was trying to calm the situation.”
Still, Miley believes it’s good for people to feel they can come to the LCSO and file a complaint.
Oktibbeha County
Chief Deputy Chadd Garnett with the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office agrees.
“Even if a deputy cussed you out on a traffic stop, that’s serious to us,” he said.
Complainants who take issue with an OCSO deputy also file reports with the deputy’s superior officer, reports which then go before Garnett and eventually Sheriff Steve Gladney.
But Garnett said he hasn’t seen one this year — in Oktibbeha County, citizens must file formal complaints in person. Most complaints come informally through phone calls, Garnett said, and people often fail to follow through with formalizing them.
Columbus
That’s not the case for the Columbus Police Department, which has no formal procedure for filing complaints and doesn’t keep track of the exact number it receives, said City Attorney Jeff Turnage.
Citizens complain instead by calling the officers’ superior or sending a written complaint.
“They can go to the chief, they can go the mayor or city council,” Turnage said. “Normally I’m pretty sure that anybody that wants to complain will figure out a person to go complain to. So we don’t direct them to a particular person…and I don’t think there’s any written policy on how to do it.”
Turnage is aware of seven or eight officer interactions with citizens this year that were severe enough to catch his or Chief Oscar Lewis’ attention.
Sometimes, Turnage acknowledged, complaints result in a reprimand that is placed in an officer’s file. If an internal investigation reveals the issue is severe enough to merit possible suspension or termination, he said it goes through the civil service commission and ultimately the city council.
Often citizens make complaints and then change their minds when they see officers’ body camera footage from the incidents, said City Public Information Officer Joe Dillon, who sometimes allows people to watch the footage if it doesn’t conflict with open investigations.
“(All complaints) are important,” Dillon said. “But at the same time, our officers are trained in how to respond to certain situations and sometimes the public may take it (harshly).”
Starkville
Starkville Police Department refused to comment or release any information to The Dispatch for this article by press time.
Chief Frank Nichols did not return multiple calls and messages, and SPD Public Information Officer Brandon Lovelady did not comment on the record when contacted.
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