Residents may voice their concerns regarding the city’s appeasement of extortionary tantrums by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Three weeks have now passed since former police chief Freddie Blackmon accepted a severance offering from the city — though the department still remains without an interim despite the mayor’s empty words. 

Back on April 6, in the immediate aftermath of Blackmon’s departure from CPD, Mayor Skip Henderson assured the public in a video interview that an interim chief would be appointed “almost immediately.”

The extremely short timeframe Henderson originally announced made it obvious that he already had a candidate in mind. 

However, the very next day on April 7, Henderson began to walk back his words. Henderson had then extended his timeframe to “a day or two,” which should have seen an interim chief appointed by no later than that Monday on April 10.

When Monday came and went with no interim Chief appointed, it became obvious to many that something had changed. 

That something, as it turns out, were extortionary threats of an erroneous lawsuit from one of the department’s Assistant Chiefs of Police, Joyce Dent-Fitzpatrick. 

According to many sources close to the Muckraker, Fitzpatrick had threatened to sue the city of Columbus if she was not personally selected as the new interim chief of police. 

Despite Fitzpatrick’s wrongful sense of self-entitlement, the position of chief of police — be it interim or permanent— is an appointed position; no one is entitled to it. The mayor may appoint whoever he believes to be the best candidate for the position. 

Ironically, Fitzpatrick’s temper tantrum demonstrates the exact reasons why she should absolutely not — ever — have command of anything, let alone the city’s police force.

Nonetheless — and in direct contrast to his original plan by his own admission — Mayor Henderson has since stated that he now plans to bring in an outside interim Chief.

Given the sequence of events, it is abundantly clear that Henderson has allowed Fitzpatrick’s extortionary and baseless threats to dictate his movements. As a result, our city’s police force remains without an interim chief under which to unify and reconstitute the department. 

In short: Henderson would rather allow Fitzpatrick to bully the entire city than to grow a spine and deal with a single city employee whose behavior has exemplified the very definition of unbecoming of an officer. 

That’s not a good look, Skip — and people see it. 

Perhaps Mayor Henderson should consider how his continued patterns of appeasement and weakness have ironically set a precedent for their own perpetuation. 

The proof is in the pudding. 

Residents may voice their concerns regarding the city’s appeasement of extortionary tantrums 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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