The De Soto Police Department is “a disaster,” said Jeff McCreary, who was hired Monday to lead a police force plagued with employee turnover and other problems.
As the city’s eighth police chief in the last 15 years, McCreary is as confident as he is blunt about the department, which has suffered, by one estimate, roughly 200 percent turnover in the last two years.
“It can be fixed,” he said. “It’s bad, but it can be fixed.”
McCreary, the former Crystal City Police chief, will succeed Joe Edwards, who resigned in late June after just four months on the job. Interim City Manager Ann Baker announced the hiring of McCreary at the end of a marathon four-hour City Council meeting Monday night in the De Soto High auditorium.
A 32-year law enforcement veteran, McCreary was the Crystal City Police chief from 2009 through 2014.
His salary as De Soto Police chief will be $72,000, near the top of the city’s pay scale for the job.
At the city’s request, the Police Department had been under the supervision of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office since early July, with Lt. Scott Schumer officially starting his management responsibilities there on July 7. The department is short on staff following the resignation of four officers in the wake of Edwards’ resignation.
On July 10, the City Council author-ized a 30-day short-term “intergovernmental agreement” with the Sheriff’s Office to supervise the department.
Sheriff Dave Marshak said Tuesday morning that McCreary’s official start date hadn’t been determined yet. Marshak also said he will work with McCreary and city officials to make the transition as smooth and speedy as possible.
“Jeff is a friend of mine,” Marshak said. “I think he’s a great leader. I think he has the ability to turn around that situation there, as long as he has the support from the city. We’re going to try and do whatever we can to make (the transition) easy for him, and at the same time get back to our business.”
Between July 2 and July 14, Marshak closely inspected the De Soto Police Department, and at Monday’s City Council meeting, copies of a six-page report on what he found were distributed. The report details serious problems with policies and procedures; training; weapons maintenance and management; evidence handling; hiring practices; and other areas. The report also recommends 14 action steps to address the problems.
“The city has disregarded basic minimum police standards regarding training, evidence storage and handling, prisoner detainee treatment, and use of force, which encourages liability and litigation,” according to the report. “I shared with De Soto leadership that in my professional opinion, the city has created an environment that has encouraged civil litigation. More bluntly, they are actually inviting lawsuits and payout. Of the issues that we have identified in less than two weeks, it’s impossible for us to fix them all at once.”
For McCreary, who lives just outside De Soto, the problems with the department made him feel like an ex-fireman watching his neighbor’s house burn down. Doing nothing was not an option.
“It’s my community,” said McCreary, 55, who has worked since January 2015 as the director of public safety for Mineral Area College in Park Hills.
“I’m in that community every single day. I have friends and family who live in that community. Once I found out what a disaster it was, I couldn’t look them in the eye, knowing that I feel I have the qualifications to change that for them, and not at least explore the possibility of (taking the job).
“I think there’s widespread community support right now and I think it’s a movement that I’d like to keep going.”
A long Monday night
That support came through loud and clear at Monday’s council meeting.
Of the approximately 120 or so residents who attended, more than 20 implored the council to turn down the Sheriff’s Office’s offer of a long-term supervisory agreement and give the city’s Police Department a chance to rebuild and reform.
“I consider Dave Marshak a friend, but at the same time, I want what’s best for my hometown and this city,” said Todd Mahn, owner of Mahn Funeral Home and one of the business leaders who recommended McCreary for the job. “For many years I’ve watched Jeff McCreary, while he was chief in Crystal City, turn around that department. He seriously turned around a department that had some problems. I truly believe he would do the same thing for De Soto.
“If we go the Sheriff’s (Office) direction, there’s no turning back,” he said.
Sadie Sechrest stepped to the microphone cradling her infant son, Tobias, who was born prematurely and had life-threatening complications that needed emergency attention.
“The De Soto Police Department was first on the scene, ready to save his life,” she said, adding that short response time was critical in her case.
“When things like this happen, you don’t have an hour (for) turnaround time; not even 20 minutes. It’s a miracle he’s here today.”
Vickie Sanders, wife of Larry Sanders, a former mayor and longtime councilman, said in her 34 years working in county law enforcement, including 24 years as a probation officer, she “never had an issue with De Soto Police giving us complete and timely reports.
“I don’t feel like Jefferson County can handle De Soto,” Sanders said. “We would be second-hand (to them). We need a chief (who’s) left alone to make changes.
“We need our police department. Please don’t give it to Jefferson County.”
After nearly an hour of public comment, the council, on an earlier motion from Rick Lane to shift the agenda, went into closed session to discuss personnel and litigation. They emerged after two hours and 15 minutes, with about half the original audience still on hand, to vote 5-0 against negotiating with the Sheriff’s Office. Then Baker introduced McCreary as the new chief, to wild cheers from the crowd.
A weary Mayor Rich McCane spoke circumspectly about the city’s move to hire McCreary.
“The council was clear that we were looking at all the options and we’re very grateful to Mr. Marshak for what he’s done to help us and for his offer to provide a long-term contract for us,” McCane said. “We feel like we would have gotten good service there. But the community feels strongly that they want to continue with local policing and the council feels that Mr. McCreary can address a lot of our issues.
“We feel like he’s qualified and capable and proven.”
With the closed session including McCreary, who was essentially undergoing his job interview, McCane said he didn’t think the city was rushing its decision.
“There was no predetermined solution here,” he said. “I had a conversation with Mr. McCreary prior to coming here and he had met with the city staff and they took a good look at our situation downtown and some of the challenges we had, and we wanted to be as open as we could, within the bounds of the law, (on) what our challenges were.
“Because we want him to be successful, we want him to know what’s out there and what needs to be improved. Mr. Marshak made that a lot easier for us. We appreciate that.
“I don’t feel like we jumped to a decision. If the city wanted to keep appearances, we would not have handled this the way we did. What we wanted was to fix problems we knew were there, at the time we found out they were there. It was messy. It was uncomfortable for all of (the) councilmen. But in the end, we feel like we did the things we needed to do to improve our police department. And that’s our job.”