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COLUMBUS, Ga. — After years of strategic failure resulting in the degradation of the entire police department and subsequently extreme rates of violent gang-related crime, Police Chief Freddie Blackmon was offered the opportunity to gracefully bow out with a $250,000 lump-sum severance package. 

That’s a very generous offering. Very. 

Despite his well-documented leadership failures and balking at the city’s quarter-million dollar offer — which also includes  healthcare and pension — Blackmon now appears to be setting himself up to be the villain his younger self would have vehemently disliked. 

It’s important to remember that as stubborn and strategically inept as Blackmon has proven to be at the Chief’s desk, he is not in fact some evil person. He isn't a criminal. He isn’t an enemy of the state. To the contrary: the man is still a police officer who has put on his badge and holstered his sidearm every day for 36 years.

Frankly, the man has been a cop longer than most of our readers have probably been alive. His inability to work out as a leader doesn’t detract from his years of honorable service to our city. In spite of his current position, the man still did more with his career and life — for the benefit of a city we believe he does honestly care about — than just about any other profession on the planet. He might be a jerk, but he’s our jerk. 

All of that aside: it does not mean he’s cut out to lead. At all. And that’s ok. 

Let’s look at this through another light for a minute:

Just because someone may be the world’s best plumber doesn’t mean they possess the leadership skills to bootstrap and run the world’s best plumbing company — and there is nothing wrong with that, so long as that plumber doesn’t inadvertently wreak havoc on the city by causing all the other plumbers to run away from him and skip town as he tries, leaving septic waste spewing all over the city in his wake. 

Blackmon may have been a good cop, but his time as chief has resulted in the running-off of hundreds of officers, thus leaving the city to decay to the violent state we are all now experiencing. We wouldn’t exactly call that crime prevention.   

Blackmon can still become the hero he always wanted to be by just taking his severance and finally letting his officers do their jobs. 

Taking that very generous severance package would mean Blackmon still possesses the character traits his younger self would have admired.

There is no greater burden of leadership than having to recognize when you need to get out of the way. Fighting it — especially by playing the race card — is the exact opposite of honorable. Trying to hold on to power is a very good way to show the world why you shouldn’t have it. 

Take the severance, Chief. Be the hero your younger self always wanted to be, even if it isn’t how your older self envisioned. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad cop. It means you’re still able to choose to be a good one instead. 

Let our city heal. Be the hero. 

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

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