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COLUMBUS, Ga. — “Always do everything you ask of those you command.” — Gen. George S. Patton.
This is the fourth article in a five-part series on the recent Operational Assessment of the Columbus Police Department, as presented to city council by Jensen Hughes on February 14, 2023.
According to officers of the Columbus Police Department who have confidentially reached out to the Muckraker, as well as several other additional sources who have corroborated the same information, five more officers have resigned from the department since that presentation early Tuesday morning. Four of those officers have gone on to work for the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office.
The new resignations bring the count to 11 officers resigned so far this year. The department is now down to an estimated 290 officers of its 488 funded positions; it is only 59.4% staffed and has a 40.6% vacancy rate; it is missing four out of every ten officers our city needs.
As we published yesterday, the resignations come after police chief Freddie Blackmon chose to defend his failures in front of his own officers immediately following Jensen Hughes’ presentation to city council.
Most city council members, however, have finally appeared to see the writing on the walls. It appears that Tuesday morning’s presentations — along with Blackmon’s unchanged behavior — may have finally allowed city officials to see why falsely accusing 70% of their police force as somehow being “racist” might have been a bad idea.
Several city councilors were unbelievably dead-set on forgoing accountability — for anyone — suggesting that the public simply “not point fingers” at the single man whose sole responsibility it was to not land the city in the position it is currently in. If city officials wish to create accountability within the police department, they ought to first seek it in themselves. The public is watching you. Closely. We all already see the egg on your face. Don’t accidentally stick your foot in your mouth trying to wipe it off. You will lose more public support than you already have.
Some councilors seemed to believe that they might simply hire a “leadership coach” to teach Chief Blackmon the very skills that were a requirement of the position the very day city council voted to confirm his appointment as chief.
Nonetheless, city council has unanimously voted to give police chief Freddie Blackmon until March 14 to present council with his strategic plan for the department. It is unclear what may occur at that time, though it is likely that officers will continue to resign from the department until the leadership issue is corrected.
This does, of course, beg the question: If city council just unanimously admitted Blackmon does not possess the leadership skills required to lead the department, then why did you hire him?
Here’s how city council members responded in the immediate aftermath of JensenHughes’ presentation and Chief Blackmon’s follow-up, along with our provided context below each councilor’s statement.
Note: The following is a transcript of how city officials reacted to Jensen Hughes’ presentation and police chief Freddie Blackmon’s follow-up briefing during the city council meeting held on Feb. 14, 2023. The statements below are in order of occurrence, with additional required context parenthetically placed in italics below:
COUNCILOR JUDY THOMAS (DISTRICT 9)
This is a very disturbing issue for me right now. It doesn't seem to matter if you are in full support of the report that came down from Jensen Hughes, or if you are in full support of the responses by our police chief. We have a problem in our community with the ways our community is currently seeing the Columbus Police Department. This report has been out for quite some time and we have not seen — I have not seen and I don't think the other councilors have seen — any kind of a strategic plan development presented to us. We've been told that the Command Staff has developed one, but we've not seen it. The recommendation from Jensen Hughes was to have a very deliberate involvement with all members of the department to provide this strategic plan. It's not there, as far as I know. I haven't seen it. Perhaps Chief Blackman could provide that to us at some point: a written strategic plan. One of the things that I saw in the statistics that were very concerning to me is that Chief Blackman said we have 293-or-96 active officers in the Columbus Police Department. When the 2008 OLOST was passed, there was funding put together to fund 488 officers. We have 296. And all of those 296, if I am correct, are not on the street — they're doing various other kinds of police work. And they're doing a good job. I don't want any of our officers to think that in any way I or my fellow councilors think that they are not providing as much service as they can to this community. But I am very concerned, you know. Chief Blackman said since this year, we've lost six officers — that's 45 days. If we continue to lose six officers every 45 days by the end of the year we'll have lost up to 50 officers. We can't do that we can't continue to do that. We have got to find a way to solve the issues that are either real or perceived. I know that sometimes perception is reality, but we've got to do something for our business community. We in Columbus brag all the time about our public-private partnership — and without that private partnership, this study would not have been done. We have got to do something to reassure our business community, our citizens in the community, that we are doing whatever is necessary to make sure we are moving toward being the safest city in the country. I'm just — I have agonized over this issue for some time, and I still don't see (pauses) I still don't see a response for this strategic plan. This, as I said, it's been out for a long time and it's not, it hasn't been brought to us. You know, I could go on forever I guess, but I just — I hope you can tell by my comments and by the tone of my voice that I am extremely concerned about what's going on in our community and how we're going to fix it (glares strongly at Mayor Henderson). And, uh, I have some suggestions on how we're gonna do it — you know, we have a public safety advisory commission. Have they been involved in any of this? I don't think so. We've got, we have the resources — we just have to use them. And I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, if I have stepped on somebody's toes but I'm not really sorry. If I stepped on your toes, too bad. I want this fixed, and I want it fixed now — as soon as we can do that. And with that, I'll shut up for a while.
MAYOR HENDERSON
Thank you, ma’am. And there is a, actually, the Strategic plan is being put together with the Citizens Group. They're actually providing additional resources for that to take place. And one of the challenges was this: today was the actual presentation of the (Jensen Hughes) report, and up to then it had been labeled as a draft — but that there had been activities going on along with the corporate individuals to work on that plan. You'll have a written plan. They're in the process of putting that together.
(Required Context: Three previous studies over the course of two years have not so-moved Chief Blackmon to develop his own strategic plan for his own department, nor has the immense amount of corroborating information from this fourth world-class study from Jensen Hughes, which Blackmon has been in possession of since Nov 11, 2022 as the department continued to fall apart around him. To this day, no such strategic plan exists nor has been implemented by the department, regardless of whatever Mayor Henderson stated above.)
COUNCILOR JOANNE COGLE (DISTRICT 7)
I've had this unique opportunity over the last 18 months to be on both sides of this platform. A year ago — almost actually I think a year ago today — we had the presentation from the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police). And it's been my observation — and again I'll echo Judy — I'm sorry if I step on anybody's toes, but I'm not sorry here: it's been my observation over the last 12 months or 18 months that we've been very reactive to this situation and not very proactive to the situation. I was a girl scout once, and I know that when you throw a blanket over a fire it sits there and smolders — and I think that's what we have been doing here. If smoldering embers … if a blanket is thrown over fire too long, those embers will smolder and it will burst into a burning inferno. I think that's sort of what we have going on here, and I think that we were really looking for some strategic plans to come out today. The Jensen and Hughes report has been public for — well, public to us — for a long time. Now, a long time in political world is a little bit longer than real life, but I think what we, you know, if you flash back even to 10 years ago when the tax was put into place that was to combat the problem — and again I echo Judy here — where we've been talking about finding solutions to a problem and we haven't come up with a plan to do so — at least one that has been presented to council. Now, I don't have all the answers to this, but I think what would put us at ease as council is if we had a detailed plan with a timeline. We're sort of at a tipping point right now — and the future of Columbus, if you were to make a pyramid, public safety is at the bottom of our city and our community. Public Safety affects our affordable housing, it affects our community health, it affects our healthy economy — and without a healthy public safety department, we don't have a solid foundation in Columbus. I think there's a lot of investors, there's a lot of citizens, there's a lot of future people, who are looking at Columbus as a place to move to — and we don't have answers and we're not acting on those answers right now because we don't have a plan. And if we do have a plan that we've been talking about, you keep hearing our “strategies”
and our “strategic plans” — well, what are those plans? Because nobody's seen those written down. Right now they're just floating in cartoon bubbles above people's heads. So I think what we're looking for as a council is to have those written down; to have those written in a timeline; to have those as actionable steps — because without that, we are just going to sit here for the next 10 years and continue to tax our citizens for something that we can't produce.
(Required Context: The audience provided applause for Cogle’s words, as did the Muckraker.)
COUNCILOR CHARMAINE CRABB (DISTRICT 5)
I came here today anticipating that there would be a strategic plan with specific actions; that, you know, some of the actions just take the Jensen Hughes report in those 70 steps would be listed; steps that were included in a memo to the chief on 1-30 of ‘22 (Jan 30, 2022) from a Corporal of the bureau of Administration Services, laying out steps that should be taken. I know that some of these have been taken — the low-hanging fruit (gestured air quotes emphatically with both hands) you know, has been taken care of. But we can and we can spend the taxpayers dollars and we can implement these easy recommendations — but until we get to the heart of the matter, and she ( Sydney Roberts of Jensen Hughes) referred to it: the leadership. She said leadership will be the key to retention and recruitment — so until we get to the heart of the matter and the leadership portion of it, … none of the other things really matter. And that's what we need to work on immediately. I'm wondering: You say that you're working with the community. Are they willing to help us with the leadership problems we're having? Are they willing to train? Because leadership is something — you know, we all work in our positions, and we do the best we can in our position, and hopefully our reward will be moved up to the next position and the next position, and then eventually we get to the point where we become leaders — and then it's like, “uh, what do we do now?” Well, leaders are not in charge. Leadership is taking care of the people that you are in charge of. And to make that transition, some people need more help than others. Is there someone out there that is going to help this department with that key leadership nugget? Because I think that's what we keep on hearing. The troops are doing a great job in the situation that they're in, but we need to give them that key; that key item — and that's what we have to focus on. Is there someone out there that is going to help Chief Blackman make that transition from being very good at everything that he's done up to this point, and now just help him transition so that he realizes he needs to let go of what he did so well in each department leading up to this point, and give him the tools to be the best leader that he can be? There's businessmen and women out there in our community. Maybe Jensen Hughes will help with that? There's books — a gazillion, I mean — out there, but that concept has to be digested and implemented in order for this money on this Jensen Hughes report to be successful. That is a key that I'm seeing over and over and over again.
(Required Context: Martial leadership is not comparable to corporate leadership; this is a key distinction that needs to be properly addressed when reading this transcript. It is important for the reader to understand that a police force is not a corporate business, but rather a martial agency. Several city officials consistently failed to realize this throughout the entirety of the meeting; it is a dangerous conflation to make. Calling in an expert on how to better influence office workers to run their financial enterprises is not comparable to leading men and women in the profession of arms who risk their lives every day under their leader’s command. For further context: officers swear an oath and put their lives on the line under the command of — and through the mutual trust of — a commanding officer; “Suzie” from development down the hall, doesn't. One cannot simply ascertain an entire career’s-worth of the required experience to lead a martial agency by hiring a “Tony Robbins wannabe” for a week. That in-and-of itself is a dangerous idea; it will result in overconfidence and complacency, leaving command staff feeling unjustly empowered with a sense of righteousness they themselves did not have to earn through their troops — which will cause serious incidents in-turn. You can’t counterfeit a leader in the profession of arms; to try to do so is dangerous. We love you, Charmaine, but this is a serious business.)
COUNCILOR WALKER GARRETT (DISTRICT 8)
(Attended remotely; question asked through video call)
My question was: we have in the past had — since I was a resident of Columbus, since I was born — we have had 36 beats, and we've all-of-a-sudden made it that we've gone back to 26. I've heard there have been nights where they are even lower numbers of that, which is a major concern. I know we have plenty of sheriff's deputies, because I've hired them to work private events. I know we have off-duty officers who are always taking private events. Why would we not make it a priority to fill (staffing) when we, you know particularly at night, we are seeing an elevation in crime? Why would we not make it a priority — if we've got close to 300 police officers — to at least get ten percent of them on the streets at night?
MAYOR HENDERSON, IN RESPONSE TO COUNCILOR GARRETT:
Well, and I think what you're asking — I'm not sure I heard everything you said; it's kind of hard to hear — but that is a priority. In fact, I think that's been, uh — there have been individuals from other units that have been temporarily doing patrol as well, so I know they're trying to utilize everybody they can to try to make sure that the citizens are safe. They and the folks on the street are doing just an incredible job — so they're working and doing everything they can to try to make sure that, until the numbers come back up, and there are some people I think that I've been told that there are some folks in field training now — so it's sort of a temporary, “right now” situation, where they're actually working from their units and being utilized on patrol.
(Required Context: The very fact that Henderson’s answer relied on the utilization of police recruits who are still in field training in order to keep at least some of the city patrolled is an unacceptable security risk to the safety of the city. Henderson’s provided answer is an objective political dodge that can be easily proven as such through technical examination of the claim; to have offered such a response was to evade accountability and quell inquisition.)
COUNCILOR BRUCE HUFF (DISTRICT 3)
I've listened to a lot this morning. I've been thinking about this for weeks now. The Jensen Hughes report has a lot of information. The business community and private citizens have a lot of information. And I just think it's time for all of us to come together. We're all on different sides, and we need to come together. The chief and everybody knows how everybody feels and what the problems are. But in order to make him a better Chief, we need to rally around now and put a formal plan together at this point. It's been mentioned around the table this morning that a plan has not been put in place, and everybody hears it. So at this point in time, we need to take what was presented by Jensen Hughes this morning, and take the formal approach to a project management strategic approach recommendation — which they said was critical at this point. And it said it was also critical that we have communication and leadership at all levels and ranks working together. So if Columbus is going to intend to be the amazing place that we say it is — Columbus does amazing — then we need to be amazing and — no pun intended— police our own household. We need to come together and put all our ideas on the table and give everybody a chance to help make the change. And councilor Thomas mentioned that we put monies in place to hire 488 police officers. We have been here since 2011, and we've never been able to attain that. We’re still working at it, but we haven't been able to attain it. So the prior chief, the present chief, no one has been able to hit that goal. Policing has become a situation, a job, a position, a career across the country that a lot of people are not stepping into now. I received some information from the city manager yesterday that was a good interesting read and just up the road and in Gwinnett County: same problems. It mirrors us as as if they are our twin (this is false)* So I just say this morning that everybody's been heard. I personally appreciate everybody in the room for being here, but it's time for us to buckle down and come together. All of the ideas, the chief’s ears are open, the council’s ears are open, the mayor's ears are open; everybody's ears are open this morning. So let's put everything on the table and come up with a deadline and a commitment from all not only to make the chief better, to make the police department better, but to make our city better.
(One audience member provided applause for Huff’s words.)
*(Required Context: The article Huff mentions that he received from Hugley was likely an article published by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, published on Feb. 10, 2023. The article states that Gwinnett County, Ga. currently has a police staffing shortage of 26%. As of the publication of this article, of the 488 funded positions in Columbus, no more than 290 of them are filled, leaving a vacancy rate of 40.6%. The Columbus Police Department’s staffing crisis is 1.56 times worse than Gwinnett. The Columbus Police Department also has four bonafide studies, to include one by Jensen Hughes, that specifically names the department’s senior leadership as the primary cause of the department’s staffing and retention issues; Gwinnett does not. It was dishonest, malicious, and unprofessional for Huff and Hughley to have knowingly made such a deceitful attempt to make such an erroneous comparison. We have nothing but love for you, Bruce, but this isn’t the time for political games. This is serious business.)
COUNCILOR JERRY “POPS” BARNES
I think what everyone's hearing: we're in unison. I was — one of the things that the Jensen Hughes report brought up a number of times is that we know here. We live here. We are a very vibrant and energetic community, and we're very, we're a very knowledgeable community here. And I know that everyone is looking for what is called an “actionable plan,” where something is going to be emplaced — and I was disappointed. But I know that we have enough talent in this community — business, private, individuals. You don't have to have a degree on the wall; it's called mother whip. And we as councilors, directly responsible to the citizens, they're looking at us to come up with a solution — no finger-pointing, because I think all of us realize that we have a very very very good police department. But nothing is perfect in life. And so we need to step back — and as Judy, and as Joanne, and Charmaine, and Bruce said, we need to do what's called a “relook” — not pointing fingers, but to bring all of our resources to the table. We as councilors — I think the responsibility, Mr. Mayor, councilors, city manager, is for us to just sit back. We know the individuals in this community: private individuals that have a wealth of knowledge, retirees, military retirees, that can help us to address this problem. I think it starts with, Mr. Mayor, with us sitting around here — we know so many people — and coming up with individuals who can help us come up with viable solutions to this. You can have the best amenities that a city can have: zip line, white water, uptown — but unless people feel safe, they're not going to come out. Safety — Maslow safety — is foremost. And as citizens, we all know because we're all hearing it from our citizens. We need to have something done — no finger-pointing — we just need to come up with individuals who will help us sit back and work out solutions to this problem. But it has to be what we call in the military an “actionable plan.” Jensen Hughes gave us something, I didn't hear anything like that. We need to come up with steps that need to be taken, and it can be done. The thing that we need to keep in mind is coming up with solutions. We need to be looking forward, we don't have to be looking backwards. You're easily looking forward for solutions, and so I think that we are capable of that. We have enough resources here sitting around this table, out here in the gallery. We have enough resources to individuals in our business community. So Judy, I think what you see: I'm glad you opened a stopper (makes bottle-opening gesture with hands) on this here, because it's something that we really need to say we all recognize and we're all going to be in the process. And whoever wants us — whoever wants this city — to be as safe and vibrant as it has been, we welcome you to help us.
(Required Context: What Barnes suggested by repeatedly stating we should “not point fingers” is to reprieve accountability for the consistent, years-long failures of the literal chief of a governmental police department, who has literally received a vote of no confidence from 73% of his own officers. It required a $190,000 privately-funded world-class study to have those same officers’ concerns vindicated after city officials dismissed them as being racist one year ago. To suggest that we should not “point fingers” because of that is utterly insane. People died. Lives were upended. The department is destroyed. Accountability matters, despite Barnes’ probably well-intended but utterly insane comment. If Barnes really is interested in “welcoming help” as he stated in his final sentence, he could start with this paragraph of contextual necessity. He may also reference our provided context beneath councilor Crabb’s section above. We love you both, but this is serious business.)
COUNCILOR JOHN HOUSE (DISTRICT 10)
I think with all the discussion about a written plan, we ought to have a written plan on our desk with a presentation, no later than the 14th of March — that's 30 days — and then quarterly, we ought to have updates on where we stand and trying to implement whatever those solutions are. So I think we do need to set a hard suspense, and then we need to just see it.
COUNCILOR THOMAS, IN RESPONSE TO COUNCILOR HOUSE:
I was about to say, Councilor House: If I thought it would work, I would move that we adjourn and start immediately this afternoon on putting together this plan, but that's my concern: let's don't let it go, let's don't let it simmer. I would support a 30-day, you know. Let's get it done. We have tremendous talent in this community — and in this room — and we need to make sure that we're doing what needs to be done, and that we don't wait another year (sternly stated with the utmost expression) to get it done. So I would support councilor House's suggestion or proposal that we have it done by — we have a strategic plan presented to us — by March the 30th (corrects herself) I'm sorry, 14th, 14th — March the 14th — and if we need to make that as in the form of a motion, I so move.
(Required Context: The motion was seconded, called for a vote, and passed unanimously. Chief Freddie Blackmon now has until March 14, 2023 — 28 days from the vote — to present his strategic plan to city council. Since that vote, no less than five more officers have resigned from the Columbus Police Department under his command.)
Be sure to stay with us for the final part of this five-part series on the recent Operational Assessment of the Columbus Police Department, as presented to city council by Jensen Hughes. We’ll be taking a look at how our city’s officials previously dismissed our officers’ concerns as “racism” for over a year and how it resulted in the city’s current predicament.
Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.
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