AUGUSTA — City officials in Grovetown, near Augusta in Columbia County, fired their new police chief, Gary Jones, on Tuesday.
“Well friends the attorney for Grovetown and the City Administrator just called me up to City Hall to tell me that my services are no longer needed as the Director of Public Safety,” Jones posted on his personal Facebook page at about 11:30 a.m. “I asked why and no response was given.”
Mayor George James said Jones sent City Manager Shirley Beasley an e-mail on Friday in which Jones wrote that city employees were making negative comments about him, adding that he’d standardized and professionalized the department since he took over on Nov. 1. He wrote in the message that he felt he was being treated unfairly.
“If the Mayor and Council is not satisfied with my performance, draft up a severance offer and I will negotiate,” Jones wrote. “I do not understand why the City does not want an honest and hardworking Chief. I must be honest and tell you that I am truly miserable here.”
James said Jones was given a severance package and wished luck Tuesday morning.
“He sent Shirley an e-mail … that he was unhappy here and that he asked for a severance package,” James said. “And so we gave him one.
“My and the (City) Council’s opinion is that he asked for it, so we gave it to him.”
James attributed the decision to fire Jones to a combination of factors.
“He had problems trying to discipline people and he wasn’t following the personnel policy,” James said.
Jones’ initial six-month probationary period was extended by city officials after an incident involving a former department employee. In the e-mail, Jones wrote that he violated the policy’s 15-day rule, but that he followed “common practice of the city” as practiced by other city supervisors.
James also attributes the decision to part ways with Jones to a recent arrest of a man against whom charges were later dropped. Chad Eric Stefani, 26, was arrested Feb. 18 and charged with three counts of criminal attempt to commit child molestation.
“That was not good,” James said.
A woman told authorities that a man in a blue Dodge Ram truck pulled up next to her house and offered her money to spend “alone time” with her daughters. Shortly after that, Jones posted on the department’s Facebook page the details asking for help identifying suspects. An anonymous caller provided Stefani’s name, which he posted on the same page.
The woman identified Stefani after Stefani’s attorney, Bobby Christine, said at a March 31 preliminary hearing in Magistrate Court, that officers told her Stefani’s name and to look him up prior to a photo line-up. Stefani didn’t match the description of the suspect that she initially gave police.
A Magistrate judge deemed there wasn’t enough evidence against Stefani to proceed with prosecution or that a crime was committed. He dismissed charges against Stefani. He was released from the Columbia County Detention Center after spending about a month-and-a-half in jail without bond.
Jones said at the time that he was looking into what transpired during the investigation and that he and his staff consulted with the DA’s office and felt they had sufficient probable cause to make the arrest.
Jones took over as chief Nov. 1. He had been Harlem Police Department chief since mid-2013. He started his law enforcement career as an officer in Harlem in 1984. He rose to sergeant in a year-and-a-half at that department before leaving to work for public safety in Folly Beach, S.C.
He joined the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office in the late 1980s and spent 12 years serving a variety of functions including beat deputy, road lieutenant and supervisor over Vice/Narcotics and Criminal Investigations. Jones moved to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, where he was a beat officer, traffic officer and served on the DUI task force. He left as sergeant over a shift in the South Precinct.
Jones took over as chief of the Sardis Police Department in 2011 before heading to back to Harlem.
Savannah Morning News
