Former police chief Mark Crowe says he wants the Pembroke City Council to publicly apologize to him and write a letter to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council to clear his name.
Crowe, who served four years as Pembroke’s top cop, spoke Monday after an hour-long “name-clearing” hearing before the Pembroke City Council that came more than a month after his tenure ended.
“This hearing was important to me because it’s the first time we’ve been able to get my side of the story out so people will know the facts,” Crowe said after the hearing, noting the apology will “show the citizens of Pembroke that I am a good and honest person.”
He said the city’s letter to POST could keep him from finding other employment.
“That alone can ruin an officer’s career,” he said.
Crowe said that while there may have been issues prior to the public controversy surrounding his awarding in May of a bid to an out-of-city auto repair shop, he believes that action ultimately led to his dismissal.
Though city officials repeatedly have declined to comment, calling it a personnel matter, documents obtained through an open-records request appear to show Crowe was under some scrutiny at least a year before May.
After he spent nearly an hour going over the case, Crowe’s attorney, Hinesville lawyer Jeff Arnold, said the next
move depends on the city.
The former chief was fired June 11, according to a letter to Crowe from Mayor Mary Warnell. It was dated the day after the city released a news re-
lease saying Crowe resigned.
During Monday’s hearing, Arnold said if Crowe resigned, then the city couldn’t fire him and shouldn’t have issued the termination letter to the state or put it in his personnel file, where it was released to the press
under the Open Records Act.