‘It’s unfair.’ Columbus police chief supporters blast council’s effort to oust him

Another overflow crowd swarmed Columbus Council’s meeting Tuesday evening after Police Chief Freddie Blackmon’s supporters rallied in his defense outside the City Services Center.

Mayor Skip Henderson confirmed last week he offered Blackmon a severance package on March 15, a day after the chief presented a strategic plan to address issues raised in a police department study authored by the national consulting firm Jensen Hughes.

Tuesday’s rally in support of Blackmon drew about 150 people, many of whom packed the council chambers after the demonstration.

“We’re just here to support the chief,” organizer Marvin Broadwater said in an interview. “We have no idea what he’s going to say. We have no idea whether he’s going to take the severance package or fight it. But we want the chief to know that we support him.”

Broadwater said he took issue with the city’s lack of transparency in asking Blackmon to step down a day after the chief’s presentation.

“If you were going to fire the chief, go ahead and do it in public,” Broadwater said. “Go ahead and fire the chief, do it for cause, whatever you’re going to do. However, here, if you tell him to bring back a plan, he brings it back and you offer him a severance package the next day.”

“This ordeal is larger than Freddie Blackmon at this time,” Broadwater said. “I mean, this is a colossal, colossal ordeal where our council, in my opinion, has wronged a citizen leader of this community.”

Blackmon, appointed chief with council’s approval in November 2020, had not accepted the severance offer, as of Tuesday night. He’s a Columbus native who started at the police department in 1986.

He declined to comment as he left the meeting.

Supporters who spoke to council during the public comments part of the meeting objected to the timing of the severance package.

“It’s unfair,” said the Rev. Johnny Flakes III of Fourth Street Missionary Baptist Church. He said Blackmon was asked Feb. 14 to come up with a strategic plan in 30 days, and then offered a severance package before having a chance to implement that plan.

“What criteria are you using to determine fairness?” he asked, adding, “The optic is it has been unfair.... The majority of the people in here will say to you that it has been unfair.”

The Jensen Hughes study was intended to improve the police department’s policies and procedures, not to “oust the chief,” he said, warning, “Be careful what you’re going to do.”

Study raises issues about police department

The Jensen Hughes report found the department not only was losing experienced personnel, but failing to retain new officers, once they were fully trained.

Blackmon’s strategic plan calls for boosting the number of sworn officers to 572, increasing financial benefits and restructuring the department. The current starting pay for a rookie police officer with a high school education is $50,121 a year.

The Rev. Michael Powell of Asbury United Methodist Church told councilors a police study 10 years ago found similar issues, so they did not originate with Blackmon.

“This is not a new problem,” he said.

Eric Finch of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives said other law enforcement agencies face the same problems keeping personnel, and urged council to give Blackmon time to implement his plan.

Broadwater, in his remarks, likened Blackmon’s treatment to a “crucifixion,” telling councilors, “You guys have to get this right, or we are in serious trouble.”

He lamented a recent spate of shootings in the city, amid the debate over Blackmon’s leadership.

“We’ve got gun violence, little kids walking up shooting each other, and this is what we’re doing?” he said.

The offered severance package

Blackmon’s supporters also attended a Feb. 28 meeting, as councilors pressured the chief to respond to the Jensen Hughes study, and the March 14 meeting where the chief presented his plan.

Here are the terms of the severance agreement he was offered the next day:

• A one-time lump sum gross payment of $250,000

• Health insurance benefits until May 2030

• Compensation for unused vacation time

• Eligibility for participation in the Columbus Consolidated Government pension plan

Blackmon’s annual salary is $161,513, according to the city’s human resources director.

His supporters say Blackmon is being targeted because he is Black. He succeeded a white police chief, Ricky Boren, another career officer who headed the department for 16 years.

Blackmon is not the city’s first Black police chief: Willie Dozier, also a Black career Columbus officer, rose through the ranks to lead the department from 2000 to 2004, before he retired.