Marie Mott
Marie Mott, a candidate in the Sept. 15 City Council District 8 runoff election, has raised a number of questions relating to 10 city police officers who were taken off enforcement duties due to alleged unreliability.
Ms.
Mott said, "To solve a problem, you must first have the courage to acknowledge there is one and identify its root cause/s. The last few days have proven to be a swirl of events that point to serious, long-standing issues within our Chattanooga Police Department. The natural tendency of police and city leadership in instances of officer impropriety is to sanitize the truth. The administration cannot continue operating with a business as usual approach, leaving the community anxious and fearful. This situation is complex, but I encourage Chief Murphy to open up and articulate a vision of how she intends to move forward and improve police services and interactions with everyday working-class people.
"I must express I am highly concerned at the news that ten officers have been reassigned to no enforcement duties. Given the sensitivity of the issue and how it impacts our entire citizenry, I humbly submit the following questions to Chief Murphy:
- Who are the police officers?
- What is each officer's rank?
- How long has each officer worked within Chattanooga Police Department?
- How many cases have each officer testified in?
- What communities was each officer assigned to?
- What is the racial, ethnic, and socio-economic makeup of those communities?
- How many complaints have been reported against each officer through internal affairs?
- What is the demographic breakdown for citizens who lobbied those complaints?
- Were there patterns or consistencies in complaints levied against these officers?
- How did Internal Affairs previously reprimand the officers, and why were they still allowed to perform their everyday duties?
- Why did you restructure the internal policy for misrepresentation and truthfulness? What impact are you hoping to make with this change?
- What do we quantify as "officer mistakes?" A typo is a mistake. Misrepresenting facts is a leading cause of wrongful convictions; that's not a mistake.
- What have you identified as the root cause for officers misrepresenting facts, and how often did this behavior occur? How will you address this going forward?
- How would you define the health and culture based on national statistics for the department, community feedback, and a look into Internal Affairs?
- How do you intend to improve the culture beyond policy changes?
- How will you rebuild trust with the community? How will your administration differ in the expectation of how officers show up in our community?
- What did the United States Attorney's Office ask from the Chattanooga Police Department? Is this an investigation? A probe? A simple request for information?
- What was the context of the allegations against the officers? How serious were they?
- What was the United States Attorney's Office's reason for getting involved in department affairs?
- What impact will this have on past and pending litigation?
- Has everyone charged or convicted by previous testimony of these officers been notified?
- How will the city compensate if any person is negatively impacted by these officers violating their due process rights?
- What areas of the police department were the officers reassigned?
- Why is this happening now?
- Why are officers being reprimanded twice, which I agree is double jeopardy and an infringement on their due process?