Police Department Disbanded After Councilwoman, Son Arrested : by Tad Cronn

Police Department Disbanded After Councilwoman, Son Arrested : by Tad Cronn

Officially, the City Council of Wellston, Missouri, disbanded the town's entire police force without warning in order to cut expenses.
Police officers came to work earlier this week to find that all 23 of them had been fired, the locks on the police station had been changed, and they were required to turn in their guns and badges.
Many residents of the town blame one councilwoman and her ongoing efforts to protect her self-confessed drug-dealing son.
The Wellston council voted on Monday evening in a closed session to shut down the police department in a 5-2 vote. In the most amazing of coincidences, Councilwoman Janet Dixon had been arrested just that morning on suspicion of carrying a firearm with the serial numbers filed off.
The conflict between Dixon and the police department goes back to 2013 when police raided the home of her son Terrence Dixon, who had been recorded admitting that he dealt drugs out of his home.
Shortly thereafter, three of the officers involved in the raid, including the one who had caught Terrence Dixon on tape, were fired by the City Council. Those firings were eventually reversed.
Not long after that, police were called to a domestic disturbance in which Terrence Dixon was again arrested. Predictably, the officer who made the arrest was fired.
Wellston Police Chief G.T. Walker calls the disbanding of his department "dirty politics" and the result of a vendetta led by Janet Dixon after her arrest and the arrests of her son.                                                                                                        Councilwoman Linda Garner opposed the disbanding and told reporters she was angry that the vote seemed to be made in haste, without discussion and without opening it to the public. Garner was kicked out of a public meeting following the disbanding of the police. She has filed a sunshine law request to make the new contract with a neighboring police department public.
Police from the neighboring community of Vinita Park will be covering Wellston for the time being. Walker was offered a job in that police department but turned it down in support of his former officers. The other Wellston officers have been told they can apply at Vinita Park, but there is no word of how many job openings there may be.
It doesn't take much imagination to view the circumstances surrounding the Wellston controversy in light of the vilification of police that has taken place under President Obama.

Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/22858/police-department-disbanded-after-councilwoman-son-arrested/#hczCtLKjyruXiBlk.99