Attorneys for city police officers who were put on desk duty based on certain infractions from the past said all need to be fully reinstated.
They said a city plan for a panel to review the cases is unprecedented.
On behalf of the individual members of the FOP who were disciplined by the new Chief, attorneys at Davis & Hoss, P.C. respond to the recent statement issued by the city.
“The City of Chattanooga has a well-established procedure for dealing with employee appeals. The ‘internal committee’ selected to review the new Chief’s recent decision to put multiple officers on tele-serve has no basis in policy or City Code,” said Janie Varnell, a lawyer at Davis & Hoss, P.C. who represents several officers impacted. Varnell says, “We timely filed appeals for each of these officers to challenge these actions, and the City responded by coming up with this new ‘step’ in the process. This has never been done before.”
Bryan Hoss, who is also a lawyer at Davis & Hoss, P.C., states, “there has been no ‘collaborative resolution’ here. The new Chief effectively ended these officers’ careers by taking their badges, taking their guns, and putting them on desk duty. Their IA cases were closed. Their previous discipline was over. These officers were actively serving and protecting this community when the new Chief took her own unilateral action. There is no City policy that allows for the new Chief to punish officers more severely for past actions than policy allows. Make no mistake about it, this was the City’s idea to correct her violation of these officers’ due process rights.”
Janie Varnell concludes, “the Department follows a discipline matrix for each violation of their code of conduct. The matrix is established disciplinary policy that the City has relied upon for years. The matrix gives these officers notice of what potential punishment they may face if there are policy violations. Violations such as false reports and misrepresentation carry a maximum punishment of suspension, not termination. Nowhere in policy or the matrix is there a form of discipline that allows the new Chief to permanently re-assign an officer and deprive him/her of performing law enforcement activities for the remainder of an officers’ career. The former Chiefs that rendered these decisions did so with full knowledge of each case, each officer, with their full command staff’s input and the appropriate discipline pursuant to department policy. To modify those past decisions now, one was even 18 years later, is a slap in the face to all former Chiefs, violates the officers’ due process rights after the fact, and punishes them more severely than their own policy allowed. We hope that, throughout whatever process unfolds, these officers are allowed to return to full duty status.”