Residents may voice their concerns for the extreme levels of racial division being used as a political tool to achieve unjust racial political ends by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.

COLUMBUS, Ga. — In a laughable interview with WTVM, Chief Blackmon said ‘race’ must be the reason for his severance, though he simultaneously admitted his years of failure.

Throughout the entire line of questioning, Blackmon said things like ‘micromanagement is necessary’ as he further vindicated the objective measures of his leadership failures.

The exclusive-yet-embarrassing interview Blackmon provided to WTVM comes after Blackmon was offered a severance package on March 15, 2023. The offer was made after Blackmon delivered a grossly-incompetent and incohesive ‘strategic plan’ to city council the day prior on March 14. 

The 47-page ‘plan’ Blackmon presented consisted of simply turning the recommendations provided by Jensen Hughes into a three-column table  of bulleted lists. It provided no lines of effort nor any sort of an actual cohesive strategic approach. A consultant needed to be hired to help Blackmon organize and publish his plan, though Blackmon struggled to brief his own rudimentary slides during his presentation nonetheless.

In response to Blackmon’s disaster of a ‘strategic plan,’ we at the Muckraker independently developed an actual strategic approach for the department. 

The fact that anyone could say that race is a factor here isn’t only disgusting, but downright laughable.

INITIAL EXCUSES

When Blackmon was asked for his thoughts about his leadership being consistently called into question through a no confidence vote, two lawsuits, and now a severance offering, Blackmon responded by saying:

“Well, first off is that it’s, it’s concerning — the, you know, I know when I took the position of being the chief of police, there would be challenges — but I knew that the challenges would not be to the point where they could not be overcome.”

Ironically, the “challenges” Blackmon eluded to include the city’s extreme escalated violent crime and gang activity, which has resulted in the city suffering an astoundingly-high escalation of homicide that is now more than five- and a-half times the national average. That escalation occurred during Blackmon’s two- year and three-month stint as chief.

INADVERTENT ADMISSION OF FAILURE

Blackmon continued by attempting to use his previous ‘strategic plan’ as a defense, disregarding the fact that his previous ‘plan’ has quite obviously not worked as the city is now a gang-ridden wasteland:

“We got together as a command staff, we put together a, a strategic plan, even before I was confirmed as chief.”

Blackmon was then asked to expand more on how his recent presentation on March 14, 2023 was not the first ‘plan’ that he had delivered to city council, further clarifying that his track-record of objectively-measurable failure spans the course of years:

“No, I presented a ‘strategic plan’ oh, our command, the command staff and I worked together to develop the strategic, the five-year strategic plan, in our ‘strategic planning session’ in, in, in, December, of, 2021.”

The presentation Blackmon referenced does not appear on any city council agenda during the month of December 2021 and was not formally presented to council as he claimed. 

THE ADMISSIONS OF FAILURE CONTINUE

According to WTVM, the previous ‘plan’ Blackmon described to have been created in December of 2021 consisted of items unrelated to direct policing. Instead, Blackmon focused entirely on things like deficiencies in the city’s economic growth, lack of health care, and lack of mental health-related treatment — which has blatantly not worked to protect the city from violence and gang-related crime.

Blackmon laughably continued by trying to defend his prior choice of ‘strategic direction’ despite the multiple years of proven objective failure of his own actions and decisions:

“Those all equate to gun violence and our violent offenses occurring when they’re not addressed. And, so, as we work together with our community partners, we will see a reduction take place, but it takes time.”

Blackmon presumably had not taken the time to recognize that the factors he described are long-term crime prevention measures that can only ever have the chance to work if gang-related crime doesn't destroy the city in the course of the ten-or-more- years required to witness results. In the meantime, officers have continued to resign in droves from under Blackmon’s command at a rate 6.22 times the rest of the nation, specifically citing Blackmon’s insane failures of leadership as the reason for their departures.

SUNK-COST FALLACY

When Blackmon was asked if he had not been given enough time to implement his ‘plan’ he responded as follows:

“I presented this most recent ‘strategic plan’ on March the fourteenth, and, the next day, I was offered a severance package.”

Blackmon clearly does not see the connection between his incompetent presentation falling well short of what an actual strategic plan for a martial agency entails, and his next-day offer of severance for his termination as chief of police.

He genuinely did not seem to understand that it was due to his lack of competence.

When asked how the offer of severance made him feel, Blackmon responded by saying he wants ‘the opportunity’ to implement his plan — as if the past several years of his incompetent objective failure were somehow irrelevant:

“It was not a comfortable feeling, but, as I stated, I know there are challenges, but, I would definitely like to have the opportunity to work at the implementation of the strategic plan.”

AND OUT COMES THE RACE CARD

After spending a full five minutes of dialogue explaining the intricacies of how his own previous actions have not worked and resulted in measurably-objective failure, Blackmon then claimed that his race must be the factor behind why he is being offered severance. 

By comparing his tenure to that of the previous police chief, Blackmon ignored any and all factors of measurable competency, opting to select the single-factor of race as somehow being the only possible factor he could imagine. Blackmon pulled the race card:

“In the previous chief of police, were not, handled the same way with me. And, and our race is different, and, and so, it presents to me, as I’m being treated differently because of my race.”

What a loser you are, Blackmon. That isn’t just disgusting, and it isn’t just arrogant:  it’s provably false. 

MORE ADMISSIONS OF OBJECTIVE FAILURE

Blackmon was then reminded that one of the items outlined in the Operational Assessment of the Columbus Police Department, developed by Jensen Hughes, was the extreme micromanagement and lack of leadership Blackmon has continued to exhibit throughout his entire tenure as chief. That micromanagement had also been identified in three other previous studies conducted over the course of two years, and has been objectively measured to be the cause of almost every single officer resignation from the department. 

Blackmon was then asked for his response to the continued documentation citing his micromanagement and lack of leadership, giving one of the most insanely tyrannical statements he could have possibly made, and further vindicating the hundreds of claims from officers over the course of years:

“In my role, bringing a bon, bringing upon a brand new command staff, during times of crisis type situations, micromanagement is in order. It’s not necessarily a daily style to display from a leader.”

For clarity: we want to ensure the reader understands that micromanagement is not — under any circumstances — ever ‘in order.’ The fact that Blackmon made such a statement openly during a filmed interview is insane. 

AND MORE ADMISSIONS OF FAILURE

Blackmon was then asked how he felt about critics who say gang activity has increased under his tenure:

“Well, gang activity has, is something that has taken place over the course of years, and so, do we have gang activity? Yes. Did we have gang activity ten years ago? Yes. And so, it’s, it’s been a constant act that has taken place and it's something that we do address.”

Blackmon seems to have conveniently forgotten that the city’s murder rate has grown to a projected rate of 38 per hundred-thousand residents this year-to-date, under his watch. If Columbus was a country, it would be the seventh deadliest nation on earth right behind Lesotho in sixth and Jamaica in fifth.

I JUST CALLED YOU RACIST, BUT PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR

Blackmon then went on to describe how he wants city council members to address their concerns to him so that he can have another chance, dispute the literally hundreds of human beings who have been shot to death in our city while his lack of leadership has caused countless officers to flat-out quit and move as far away from him as possible.

Blackmon also extended this falsely-engineered olive branch after he had just called them all racist not three minutes prior:

“If there are some council members that have concerns, regarding me, I, I would like to have the opportunity to be able to communicate with them to discuss those concerns, and, and see what needs to take place so that we be able to move forward.

THE IRONY’S FINAL BOW

The irony continued, as Blackmon then described the very reason why he has been offered severance as his defense for why he should stay — which is further proof of how out-of-touch and nose-blind this guy truly is:

“Because, look, I’m from Columbus. I grew up in Columbus. And, Columbus, has the great potential to be, even better than it is. We don’t need to go in a reverse direction, we need to go forward.”

Take the severance, Freddie. Don’t play the race card. Save whatever dignity you have left and enjoy.

Residents may voice their concerns for the extreme levels of racial division being used as a political tool to achieve unjust racial political ends by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.

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

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