What started out as a discussion to potentially allow a retiring police officer to purchase his service weapon for $1 led to the termination of the police chief at Tuesday’s McComb city board meeting.
McComb officials voted to fire Garland Ward by a 3-2 margin, with selectmen Bruce Mullins, Tommy McKenzie and Matt Codding in favor and selectwomen Tabitha Felder Isaac and Terri Waterman-Baylor opposed. The sixth seat is vacant.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said Deputy Chief Delre Smith is in charge of the department on an interim basis.
City Administrator David Myers said Ward has 10 days to appeal his termination to the Civil Service Commission.
Lockley suggested skipping the item on the agenda that would allow Rodney Nordstrom, who retired from the department earlier in the year, to purchase his service weapon for $1, which is customary for retiring officers. The mayor said the department did not have enough weapons to allow Nordstrom to buy his.
Nordstrom filed a lawsuit against the city after his resignation seeking $750,000 in damages. He was deputy chief but was demoted to lieutenant Dec. 7, 2021.
He had an altercation with Ward prior to the demotion. Ward was suspended for 10 days without pay and was ordered to attend anger management training.
Mullins was the lone board member who voted not to reappoint Ward at the beginning of the term in July, saying the community had lost confidence in the chief. He suggested going into executive session Tuesday after hearing not enough weapons were available.
“The thing is about the weapons, that’s the most important item in the police department and you should never be short with that,” Mullins said after the meeting.
Mullins added that he was not satisfied with the department’s operations.
“At this point, I think that the citizens can make up their own minds, but I didn’t come into the job thinking that he was the right fit for the department and I still feel that way,” he said.
Lockley said there were no extra weapons because Ward hired several officers recently. He said the department had fewer officers when Lt. Sean Gill recently retired and purchased his service weapon for $1.
Ward did not comment on his termination, but he expressed similar sentiments during the meeting.
“You allow people to buy their gun at $1 and you don’t replace the guns that are bought, this is what you get and this is where we are at,” he said. “You can’t give a person a weapon and never replace them.”
Lockley, Waterman-Baylor and Felder Isaac all said they would vote to rehire Ward if the topic came up again. The winner of next Tuesday’s special election for the vacant Ward 4 seat could determine if there is enough support on the board to rehire Ward.
Ward’s firing was the first termination by this board, which took office in July, replacing every member of the previous board, which had fired numerous city department heads in its four-year term.
“It was said at the start of the new board that we would not have any surprises,” said Lockley of Ward’s termination. “This was one of those surprises like we had with the prior board. Personally, I think it was underhanded, politically motivated and I’m not happy with the decision of the board. Just because I’m not happy with it, I have to accept the decision of the board.”
Codding, who attended the meeting by phone, and McKenzie did not comment on their reasons for voting to terminate Ward, but both said during the meeting that Nordstrom should have been able to purchase his service weapon.
“It’s a very lame excuse that I’m hearing here about this simple topic to award a guy who’s given the city 28 years of service. It hurts to hear this discussion,” McKenzie said.
Codding agreed.
“I think that the city should go ahead and give the grace that we’ve given everyone else and show, hey, if you stick with the city a long time, we’re going to respect that,” he said.
Ward submitted a purchasing order for 10 guns prior to the meeting. The board unanimously approved the purchase that Myers estimated would cost $4,000 to $5,000 and will come from $200,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds designated for police equipment.
Lockley, McKenzie, Felder Isaac and Waterman-Baylor all said they would support allowing Nordstrom to purchase his service weapon after the city had more guns.
Ward’s termination comes toward the end of a violent year for the city, with fatal shootings occurring outside convenience stores, at a city park and along Delaware Avenue.
A 6-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting at Central Park on Minnesota Avenue Feb. 20. Seven people have been charged.
A teenager was shot to death on July 15 on the corner of Burke and White Streets. A judge released two suspects after declaring investigators hadn’t presented enough probable cause to bind the case over to a grand jury. Not long afterward, two witnesses who were with the teen the night he died were wounded in a drive-by shooting at the house where they had been staying.
A day after that shooting, more gunfire wounded three people near the entrance of a nightclub, and one of the victims was shot again about two hours later while riding in a car on Delaware Avenue after leaving the hospital. The driver was shot and killed, and her 13-year-old daughter was wounded .
And police had another big case not go their way when a grand jury declined earlier this year to return an indictment in a Father’s Day 2020 killing.
Waterman-Baylor said Ward has been doing a good job making arrests.
“How long they stay in jail is not the police department’s fault,” she said.
She said she is satisfied with the number of people the department is hiring and its visibility in neighborhoods.
“Everybody deserves a chance,” she said. “We just got here July 1. We don’t know his work performance. We can’t put the past on him. ... The concern is crime. No matter who we put in that position, the crime is not going to change if the community doesn’t open their mouths and start talking.”
Felder Isaac said she did not like the way Tuesday’s meeting went.
“I am not pleased they voted to get rid of the police chief,” she said. “I am not pleased at all. I am not satisfied. I am not pleased. They’re being like the previous board. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and I’m very upset and I feel like we didn’t give him a fair chance.”
