A Georgia mayor is accused of abruptly shutting down a small town’s entire police department after officers allegedly discussed his wife on social media.
Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick dissolved the Cohutta Police Department on Wednesday, terminating all 10 employees, according to WDEF. A sign posted on the department’s door announced, “The PD has been dissolved, and all personnel have been terminated,” and directed residents to rely on the county sheriff’s office for law enforcement.
“They’ll get a paycheck. We’re not that way, and I appreciate their service, okay? It is time for a change,” Shinnick told the New York Post.
The decision follows weeks of escalating tension between town officers and Pam Shinnick, the mayor’s wife and former town clerk. Officers raised concerns about her continued involvement in town operations, including access to personal and sensitive information, after council records showed she had been removed from her position last year over allegations of creating a “hostile work environment.”
That friction intensified after officers allegedly made critical or “inappropriate comments” about Pam Shinnick on Facebook, WDEF reported.
Several officers, including former Sgt. Jeremy May filed a complaint against Pam Shinnick. Officials had attempted to mediate the situation, but those efforts were followed by the department’s sudden dissolution.
“This all comes to personal vendetta from the mayor, and I wholeheartedly believe that,” May told WRCB-TV. “We took a stand for transparency, and as a result, every one of them has lost their jobs.
It is unclear when the officers learned that they lost their jobs, but former Sgt. Steven Thornton claimed to WDEF, “It was told to us, this is third-hand information, that he told the acting town clerk that he still wanted us all fired, and it would happen. It happened.”
The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office will now take over policing duties in Cohutta, a town of fewer than 1,000 residents in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near the Georgia–Tennessee border.
As for next steps, three members of the Cohutta Town Council have called a special meeting for Friday, May 8, at 5 p.m. at town hall, according to News Channel 9.
The agenda includes possibly bringing back the town’s police department, discussing a push for Ron Shinnick’s resignation, reviewing the state law that allows officials to be recalled and considering a third-party investigation into the mayor’s actions.
The Independent has contacted the Town of Cohutta and the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
