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COLUMBUS, Ga. — “The good military leader will dominate the events which surround him; once he lets events get the better of him he will lose the confidence of his men, and when that happens he ceases to be of value as a leader.” — Field Marshal Viscount “Monty” Montgomery of Alamein, The Art of Leadership, 1958

In what has been revealed to be an obvious ploy to protect his own public image, mayor Skip Henderson continues to avoid admitting the well-documented failures of police chief Freddie Blackmon as shown in a recent video interview conducted by WTVM.

In January and February alone, Columbus has already suffered enough homicides to exceed the national average of 6.9 per hundred-thousand residents for an entire year. Statistically, if our city continues to experience homicides at this rate, we are on-track to suffer 78 homicides for 2023, if not more.

Henderson’s pattern of dodging, denial, and deflection has now been exhibited several times throughout the past few weeks as he refuses to admit the undeniable failures of police chief Freddie Blackmon. 

The refusals have developed a pattern that makes it extremely obvious that Henderson is more concerned with the maintenance of his own public image than he is with taking the appropriate actions required to secure our city’s public safety — though his plan for “public relations preservation” has already begun to severely backfire.

Here’s how.

Note: The analysis below is based on careers-worth of professional experience in interpersonal heuristics and kinesthetics, both here in the United States and abroad, by people who really know what they are talking about.

THE WTVM INTERVIEW

In a video interview with Mayor Henderson by WTVM reporter Ashlee Williams, Henderson was faced with hard questions from the press that he — along with most other city officials — frankly aren't used to having to answer. Nonetheless, Williams asked them anyway, placing Henderson on-the-spot in a position of unprepared stress. As a result, the answers Henderson chose to give, along with the situational heuristics and his kinesthetic body language, were quite revealing and rather damning. 

THE PREFERRED RESPONSE

When asked the basic, relatively-non stressful question of what he heard at the city council meeting on Feb. 28, 2023, Henderson chose to respond by only telling his preferred narrative of the evening’s events:

“I can tell you what I heard,” Henderson began, “and what I heard was support for a chief, support for a police department, and a community that is concerned about these young people who are making, just, these ridiculous decisions on pulling triggers and injuring other people.”

Henderson chose to make no mention whatsoever of those who spoke out against Blackmon and the increasingly-obvious neglect of city officials to address the issue. 

THE UNPREPARED FOLLOW-UP

In response to Henderson’s ‘preferred response’ to the question, reporter Ashlee Williams pressed him harder on the issue:

“And there were also people that were not in support of Chief Blackmon there last night,” Williams pressed.

“Yea,” Henderson hesitantly replied in a hasty state of unpreparedness, as his demeanor and body language deviated from the baseline of his previously-controlled and scripted response. Henderson’s unconscious bodily reactions saw his lips tighten and eyebrows raise as his head perked up in response to Williams’ inquiry.

“That’s right,” Henderson continued with a highly-visible degree of nervousness. “As I said,” he continued in deflection while dodging Williams’ statement, “there was a lot of emotion.”

That was the only response Henderson’s startled-self chose to provide in acknowledging the heroic, courageous, and undeniably-true testimony provided by 30-year CPD detective Byron Hickey that evening. Henderson chose to make no mention of anyone speaking against Blackmon, other than saying “there was a lot of emotion.”

Are we starting to see the ducking and dodging of preferred narratives yet? 

But wait — it gets so much worse!

THE GOLDEN QUESTION

Williams then asked the most concretely-revealing question of her entire interview with Henderson, shining light on what appears to be the single-most damning hindrance to Henderson’s future public image in the history of his decades as a city official, let alone as mayor:

“Have there been talks between city councilors, or you, or both, to terminate Chief Blackmon?”

INITIAL KINESICS

Henderson took stock of the question, aligning his eyebrows in a tightly-even pattern while snapping his head to the right and looking away from the camera. Henderson then immediately placed the line-of-sight of his eyes downward and to the right; a tell-tale unconscious kinesthetic behavior indicative of shame, concealment, guilt, and malevolence. In short: when people do this, it tends to mean you’re on the right track in your questioning.

This was also a large deviation from the baseline of Henderson’s controlled and scripted response to Williams’ first question, before he was pressed and placed under stress.

INITIAL STATEMENT

Digging his own public relations hole even deeper as his own body’s reactions betrayed his secrets for him, Henderson provided the following initial reply:

“You’d have to ask city council,” Henderson began while shaking his head “no” from left to right. 

Head nods, in truthful statements, tend to align with the person’s statements. For example: if we truly believe a “no” statement that we’ve made, we nod our heads from left to right. If we truly believe a “yes” statement that we’ve made, we typically nod our heads up and down. Our body language agrees without words.

This next statement from Henderson is where the rubber meets the road, revealing a solid political wedge between city council and Henderson.

THE SWITCH & REVEAL

While switching the direction of his kinesthetic head nods from “no” to “yes,” Henderson inadvertently admitted that council is, in fact, discussing Blackmon’s termination. 

SECOND STATEMENT

Henderson, while changing from his previous “no” nod to a “yes” nod, made the following statement while stam-stam-stammering through his hastily-chosen and unpreparedly-honest words:

“I have not been involved in, any of those, any of those conversations.”

Pay very close attention to the wording of Henderson’s statement, which his head nods just confirmed that he genuinely believes.

Henderson said “... in any of those conversations.” 

He did not say “I don’t know if those conversations exist.” When under stress and placed on-the-spot to answer a question he was not prepared to ask, Henderson fell to the lowest level of his training.

He told the truth and said he ‘isn't a part of them,’ which acknowledges that they do in fact exist. 

Council, therefore, can almost certainly be confirmed to be having talks about Blackmon’s termination — and Henderson is admittedly not a part of them.

That tells us a lot.

If Mayor Henderson is choosing not to be a part of council’s conversations to terminate Chief Blackmon, that would indicate three things:

First, it indicates that the strength of council’s current votes — a required supermajority of seven — is quite obviously strong enough to place Henderson in a position of political opposition. If council did not have enough strength to cause Henderson to be in opposition, Henderson would not have responded to Williams’ question the way he just did; it would simply be a null issue.

Second, it reveals that there is, in fact, a political wedge between Henderson and council on the termination of Chief Blackmon. Think about it: If Henderson and council were of the same mind on terminating chief Blackmon, Henderson wouldn’t have to say that he “isn’t part of” council’s conversations to do so; he would have proudly said something — anything — other than what he did. 

Third, and perhaps the most telling bit of information one can deduce, is the following:

Knowing that Henderson is admittedly not in support of terminating Chief Blackmon, and knowing that there is a political wedge of opposition between him and council on the topic, one can therefore deduce that city council is, in fact, almost certainly in favor of terminating Chief Blackmon.

Furthermore, knowing that we have already identified that council obviously has enough strength in their political standing to have caused Henderson to separate himself from them on the issue, it reveals that council likely has more than enough votes to terminate Blackmon without the mayor’s recommendation.

Nonetheless, Henderson continues to favor his own public image by denying the reality of his own failed responsibilities as our city’s head of public safety. All-the-while, the city’s degrading gang-ridden blood-stained state remains on Henderson’s — let’s say that again for clarity — Henderson’s hands.

Perhaps Henderson ought to lick his finger, stick it up in the air, and discern the direction in which the wind is blowing before he continues to place himself on the wrong side of a dangerous issue of public safety under his own watch.

If Henderson thinks that speaking against Chief Blackmon’s years of documented failures would be bad for his public image, just wait until he finds out what going against the voices of an entire city council and their 205,617 constituents gets him. What a legacy that will leave in the written history of our city, forever, with his name attached to it.

Your move, Henderson. Quit being a spineless politician and be a leader instead. 

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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