FOP takes ‘no confidence’ vote on chief, assistant

Hours after they announced their retirements last Wednesday, the Hot Springs Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 1 voted unanimously to issue a letter of “no confidence” against Police Chief Jason Stachey and Assistant Chief Walt Everton.

“After a lengthy discussion, a motion and a second was made” for the “no confidence” vote against both, the FOP said in a statement released to The Sentinel-Record on Friday.

“Although not every FOP member was able to attend, the more than 50 members present voted unanimously” to submit a letter to City Manager Bill Burrough and the Hot Springs Board of Directors signifying their vote.

Stachey and Everton both publicly announced Wednesday morning they had decided to retire from their positions effective May 29. They notified Burrough of their decision then met with The Sentinel-Record later that morning. The FOP met Wednesday night.

Asked about the FOP vote on Monday, Stachey said, “Walt and I prayed about it and we’re going to take the high road. We understand now there were some issues and we want to let some healing take place within the department under new leadership.”

Stachey said they were surprised by the vote and had not been contacted by the FOP to discuss the issues.

“I hope for the very best for all the employees in the department and will continue to say a prayer for the officers and the city,” he said. “I love the department and love all the employees and hope with new leadership they can all prosper and move forward.”

“I wish the best for each and every officer that’s there,” Everton said. “They are the boots on the ground every day. I wouldn’t wish any ill will toward any of them. I hope with new leadership they can heal those wounds.”

Four of the FOP board members, including Cpl. Jjesus Anaya, president, Sgt. John Tinney, vice president, Cpl. Kenny May, secretary, and Officer Zachary Brown, treasurer, met with The Sentinel-Record on Monday to address some of the issues that led to last week’s vote. May stressed that any comments they made were on behalf of the FOP and not the Hot Springs Police Department.

“No statement we make is intended to be defamatory or disrespectful toward the Hot Springs Police Department” and is “the best representation of the voting body of the FOP,” he said.

Wednesday night’s meeting was a regular meeting that had been planned for some time, but took a while to organize due to COVID-19 concerns, Anaya

said, noting the letter drafted as a result was issued to Burrough and the board.

“There were recent events that happened that were kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back,” May said. “There are a lot of issues we hoped to change with these votes of no confidence, but for the sake of being clear we can break these down into two different issues.”

One issue the FOP wants to address is the need to have “a positive impact on the general morale in the department, which a lot of secondary issues fall under,” May said, and the larger category, which the votes were a “first step toward,” is to give lower-level supervisors and officers “the resources they need to provide police service to the community in a way that’s effective to the community and, equally as important, safe for the officers tasked with providing those services.”

May noted there were “a lot of issues” but they all fall into those two broader categories. Asked if the coronavirus pandemic was a factor, he said, “it was completely unrelated,” and “just a coincidence” the vote came during this period, noting the virus “didn’t even escalate” the situation.

“For us, (the virus) is just another thing we’ve got to contend with,” Tinney said. “It was definitely a stumbling block but didn’t have anything to do with the vote.”

Asked if the death of Officer 1st

Class Brent Scrimshire, who was killed March 10 in the line of duty, was a factor, May said he “couldn’t make a lot of comment on that except to say there was some disenchantment with some issues surrounding those circumstances.”

The officers specifically singled out the loss of the department’s Park Avenue firing range, which Anaya said has been a major topic “since it got taken away from us,” noting the range had been in the possession of the department for over 70 years and “yet here we are without a facility” since it was shut down Feb. 6, 2018, after a few noise complaints.

He said “the brunt of the complaints” were officers shooting in the evening past the allotted time frame, which he said was incorrect, since they always ceased training by 9 p.m. and the cutoff was 10 p.m.

“They shut it down without really giving us any reasoning behind it other than just shutting it down,” Anaya said.

May said night training was only conducted around seven times a year and “other than that it was all during regular business hours in the day.” Tinney noted officers are mandated to conduct night training.

“We need a facility that’s ours that we can feel safe in,” Anaya said, stressing that the Mountain Valley Sportsman’s Association range, located at 320 10 Mile Road, where they have been training since their range was shut down, is “a great facility and there’s a lot of benefit to having that facility as well.”

But he said there were “some downsides” to using it, including it was “about a 20-minute drive” to get there so it was often inconvenient and it’s open to the public, which was also a concern.

“MVSA has been very welcoming,” Tinney said. “They really love the police and want us to train there, but we need something” a little closer like the old range.

“Worst case scenario, also, if you had some kind of shooting injury, your transport time to the hospital from there is substantially longer than it would be from the range on Park Avenue,” May said.

The officers also singled out frustration with the handling of “shots fired” calls in the city, noting that even though fewer than 120 days have passed in 2020, the department has already responded to about 200 “shots fired” calls in the city.

“Without getting into what we need to do operationally or tactically to combat that, these votes of no confidence are hopefully the first step in allowing us to more effectively and safely get those under wraps,” May said.

Lower-level supervisors “on the front lines” have plans to address the issue, he said, noting he didn’t know “what kind of push back on an official level they’ve gotten,” but there “are some frustrations there.”

He said “the feeling of many of the FOP members” is that the issue was not being dealt with adequately.

“Every shift it seems like there are one or two (shots fired calls),” Tinney said.

“I believe the consensus with a lot of supervisors who are also FOP members is that they feel they have ideas on how to curb these shots fired incidents, how to develop suspect vehicles and how to subsequently apprehend those suspects,” May said. “They are frustrated with what they are able to do and what they are not able to do with allocations of resources.”

He said one supervisor has repeatedly requested extra manpower in some of the high-incident areas and has received some but “not to a level that is satisfactory in his own mind.”

May said some of the issues were difficult to share publicly, noting, “This has not been a pleasant process. This isn’t something the FOP likes to do or a position we like to find ourselves in. I think some of these are hard to address because we don’t want to give the false impression this is an attack on any individuals at the police department.”

Asked why the FOP chose to hold the vote even after Stachey and Everton had announced their plans to retire, May said, “The agenda for the FOP meeting, that item which was just a discussion surrounding leadership, was required to be put on there by an FOP member prior to the resignations.

“The problem is not solely with any individuals in the department so the resignation of the chief and assistant chief does not fix these issues, and there are still issues that our FOP body wanted to move on trying to fix,” he said.

“The agenda had been set for some time,” Anaya said. “There are still issues that need to be addressed so the meeting continued as scheduled. People will assume (the resignations) had something to do with our meeting, but we can’t say 100% that was the reason behind it. You know, let them use their imagination.”

Asked if they had any comment on who might take over as police chief, the four declined comment, but May said they would “love to have any candidate” for the position come to the FOP Lodge to speak to the members.

“This was not a knee-jerk reaction,” May added regarding the board’s vote. “It takes a certain level of conviction in our members’ minds and hearts to bring about this sort of action and there have been smaller pieces at play for some time and some recent events were probably enough to raise those members’ convictions enough to where they wanted to make a statement about it.”