DEL.ICIO.USPolice chief, CEO feud embarrassing, familiar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A police chief and his boss, the county’s elected chief executive officer, openly at odds. An investigation of unspecified allegations against the outspoken police chief. Questions about the safety of a public official. Counterallegations about the CEO’s security detail.
It’s the kind of controversy no police department wants, but it’s also not an entirely new phenomenon in DeKalb County. Many of the elements have precedents in recent DeKalb history or in the history of Terrell Bolton, the police chief now halfway through a two-week “administrative leave” ordered by CEO Burrell Ellis.
No one other than Bolton and Ellis can say exactly what caused the dispute that erupted last week in a public relations disaster for DeKalb government.
Ellis fired Bolton’s top civilian aide and put Bolton on leave pending an investigation into unspecified allegations. He said he is not satisfied with Bolton’s practice of taking comp time, his frequent trips to his family home in Dallas or his job performance, including Bolton’s efforts to reduce crime.
Bolton labeled the investigation a “witch hunt” and asked the GBI to take over that probe and investigate Ellis as well. The GBI said Friday that it could not do so based simply on Bolton’s request.
Among Bolton’s complaints was the conduct of county sheriff’s deputies in Ellis’ security detail. The presence of those deputies — from the independent Sheriff’s Office rather than the county government’s own police force — has its roots in DeKalb’s history and Ellis’ political experience.
Violence and threats
On the night of Dec. 15, 2000, Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown was shot to death in his driveway. It turned out he was assassinated at the behest of the man he had defeated for the office, Sheriff Sidney Dorsey, who is now serving a life prison term.
Just weeks after the killing, Vernon Jones took office as chief executive officer with an expanded county police security detail. Jones cited Brown’s slaying as justification after the disclosure that the county was spending about $250,000 a year to protect Jones.
One of Jones’ defenders in that controversy in 2003 was then-Commissioner Burrell Ellis, who told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that commissioners “receive threats, and [Jones] probably receives more threats.”
But by late 2007, Ellis said in a public meeting that Jones was threatening him. Ellis accused Jones of muttering threats to him, which Jones branded “outright lying.”
Ellis said: “He is sending a signal to his Police Department to not provide protection to certain members of this Board of Commissioners, putting us at direct risk. Yes, he’s putting me at risk, and he’s putting my family at risk.”
When Ellis took office less than 18 months later, he said he did not want police protection because Bolton had made a comment in a television interview about having “enemies” who wanted to hurt Bolton’s reputation.
Bolton has said he personally assured Ellis that he was not referring to him. But Ellis repeated his explanation about the “enemies” remark as recently as Tuesday.
Chief turnover
Jones’ security detail also figured in the start of several years of political turmoil in the DeKalb Police Department, including having four chiefs in eight years.
In 2004, Police Chief Eddie Moody abruptly retired and later claimed Jones forced him out. Moody said Jones wanted him to tell a grand jury that he, not Jones, determined the size of the CEO’s security detail. Jones denied that account.
Jones replaced Moody with former Fulton County Police Chief Louis Graham. His 18-month administration was marked by disputes with some officers, including claims that Graham favored officers who had been in Jones’ security detail.
Graham resigned after news surfaced of a profanity-laced tape recording of him and an aide, and he was replaced by acting chief Nick Marinelli. Jones then hired Bolton to start work in January 2007.
Bolton: A fighter
Bolton was Dallas police chief from 1999 until his 2003 firing. The city manager said Bolton was insubordinate and refused to give the mayor weekly briefings.
Bolton and his supporters said he was the victim of a new mayor who wanted a new chief, and Bolton claimed vindication when a court later found he was fired “not for cause.”
DeKalb was used to police chiefs who stayed out of the limelight. Bolton signaled he would be different, holding his own news briefings at crime scenes. He also drafted a plan to dramatically expand his department and raise police pay.
When commissioners balked at the cost — $25 million in the first year — Bolton told community groups to lobby commissioners. Jones often stood by Bolton as he took such stands — but now Bolton has a new boss.
A sheriff’s influence?
Ellis and Bolton agree they had no substantive meetings between Ellis’ election last year and the daylong meeting last week that ended with Bolton being placed on leave.
Instead, Ellis asked Sheriff Thomas Brown (no relation to the slain Derwin Brown) to head his transition committee on public safety.
Brown and Bolton had an exchange some witnesses described as heated at a community meeting early in 2008, though both men subsequently downplayed it.
Brown’s transition committee report challenged many of Bolton’s practices, and questioned how police transfers were handled. It also advocated creating a public safety commissioner who would be Bolton’s boss.
Bolton responded with a lengthy report of his own sharply disagreeing and saying he was “very concerned with the dismantling spirit … of the report led by Sheriff Thomas Brown.”
The showdown
Ellis has not said who is conducting the investigation of Bolton. But Bolton’s lawyer said DeKalb sheriff’s deputies have questioned police employees and even harassed Bolton’s brothers in a Decatur shopping center parking lot last week.
Bolton and his brothers claim the deputies also followed them. Bolton cited those actions in his letter Thursday to the GBI.
Brown did not respond to requests for comment.
Staff writer Ty Tagami contributed to this article.
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