McComb police Chief Damian Gatlin doesn’t support the demotion of his department’s captain.
The looming possibility of a demotion for longtime officer Steven Powell “is not coming from me,” Gatlin told the McComb Lions Club on Tuesday.
“I knew (Powell) from a distance” before Gatlin joined the department as chief in October, he said. “He’s a workhorse.”
Selectman Devante Johnson proposed the elimination of the captain position earlier this month, and the board attempted to discuss the matter at a meeting Monday, but adjourned without discussion or taking any action.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said he had never supported such a position being created and had prevented the creation of a captain rank from coming before the board when he was city administrator.
Gatlin said Powell was the training officer who worked with his brother when he joined the police department. His brother thought Powell was being unnecessarily hard on him until he saw Powell give the same treatment to other rookie officers.
“Ask him now, he’ll tell you the kind of good man Steven Powell is,” Gatlin said.
The chief said he wanted to run his department the way he thinks it needs to be run, with the confidence of his employers.
“I want the trust of the city and the community,” he said. “If I don’t feel I have that, I’ll pack up and go home.”
He said he wants a healthy department in which officers are well equipped and have good morale. On his wish list are more vehicles, with a planned purchase of at least two new vehicles each year. He said building up the fleet so that officers can take cars home would save some wear and tear because the cars wouldn’t be used on multiple shifts each day; and officers called in from off-duty could respond faster.
He said the department is almost ready to put a new Dodge Charger into service, and it will purchase two new Chevy Tahoes, but the department is already down at least three cars due to storm damage or servicing needs.
“We need to replace some things. If I leave tomorrow and someone new comes in, that problem is still there,” Gatlin said.
He also made a pitch for the $117,000 body camera system he has presented to the city board, for which Selectman Michael Cameron proposed paying half of the cost upfront if Gatlin can raise the remaining funds for the system’s four additional years of payments.
“I think they’ll help us,” Gatlin said. “I’ve been vindicated by a body camera, and I think they’ll do the same for our guys.”
The chief said the department should also have fencing around the parking lot where cruisers are parked when not in service, because break-ins have been attempted on the cars parked there.
With those needs, Gatlin noted he hasn’t requested pay raises, even though officers “are paid peanuts, and they’re asked to do so much.
“We tell them we appreciate them and they do good work,” he said. “We need to put our money where our mouth is.”
He said the starting salary for a McComb police officer is $13.88 per hour.
To be a more effective police force, Gatlin said he and his officers need to show more compassion with suspects and in the community. He said officers should especially be present and supportive of area youth. He described going to an elementary school and walking into a classroom where some of the students immediately started “shooting” him with finger guns.
“We need a paradigm shift in the mindset of our youth,” Gatlin said. “People see us coming and say, ‘The police are coming to get you.’ Don’t do that. You’re teaching them to run from us. We want them to run to us if they’re in trouble.”
Gatlin also tacitly acknowledged racial divisions, and urged the healing of rifts.
“I’m not here to be pro-black or pro-white,” he said. “I’m pro-right. If we don’t unify, this city is going to burn to the ground. The city will die if we keep going back and forth. If we don’t want to be overcome by evil, we need to overcome evil with good.”
