Harsh wind blew through the small town of Great Bend, Kansas, and the issue will finally be settled. Great Bend Police Chief Cliff Couch has had a rough and tumble year — which hit all Kansas papers over the summer when the Great Bend City Council decided to suspend, and prepare to fire the Chief.
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“It was pretty surprising when they came out of that closed-door meeting, the private meeting and took a vote to essentially fire me,” said Couch.
Couch believes this started when he raised concerns about his officers being understaffed and overworked.
“The department is falling apart, getting into a bad, bad place,” added Couch.
According to Couch, he was told to turn a blind eye by City Administrator Howard Partington. However the city administrator says otherwise.
“A couple months ago I expressed some concerns about you know some misconduct, dishonesty, some things that I saw in the operations of city hall with the city administrator and the mayor,” explained Couch. “And I guess about a week later the city administrator told me I wasn’t going to the FBI academy anymore.”
Couch contended that his department, understaffed and underworked was given an action plan: write more tickets to generate revenue. This, however, struck Crouch as a bad idea — and one he didn’t agree with.
On September 5, the Kansas community celebrated as residents supporting Chief Couch managed to get him re-instated.
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The crowd erupted in cheers and excitement when the vote was read, 4-3, in favor of reinstating the chief.
After a nearly month and a half long fight, Councilman Dawson was happy with the outcome.
“The bunch opposing him has had no date or anything put together to replace him with and so we were in bad shape not having a police chief,
so hopefully we can things back on the road and start putting things back together,” said Dawson.
But that victory was fairly short lived. Today, Chief Couch resigned, saying lack of support would prevent him from doing the job he felt needed to be done.
In his letter of resignation, the Chief lays out his case:
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Some of these were personnel type issues, while others dealt with ethical issues. Among the more serious of my concerns dealt with the Mayor purposely hampering a race relations board the Police Department is required to have by law, and the fact that the City Administrator was attempting to force me to make officers issue more citations to generate more revenue (which I knew to be an unethical, illegal practice).
However, it has become apparent to me that there will be insurmountable difficulties in continuing my duties as the Chief of Police. The same small group of people that orchestrated my termination in order to silence me is still in positions of power.
None of the concerns I addressed to the Council regarding Mayor Allison or Administrator Partington were ever investigated. It has also become obvious that I am being targeted politically, without any regards to truth or moral scruples, and I know that one cannot be an effective Police Chief with a target on his back.
As such, I am tendering my resignation, effective October 15, 2017.
He added that people were free to investigate him or his actions — because attempts to attack his integrity would fail.
I have requested that any left-over money donated to my legal defense fund, after expenses are settled, be donated to charity. I also want to emphasize that I have nothing to hide, and that there is no surreptitious reason for my accepting another position. Anyone who wishes to dig into my past or my conduct at the Great Bend Police Department is welcome to do so. My reasons for leaving all have to do with the need for career security and the well-being of my family.
I sincerely hope that the City will consider enacting legislation providing protection to “whistleblowers” and encouraging accountability in government, so that no other employee will ever have to make the difficult decision that I find myself facing. More importantly, such ordinances and policies would do much to ensure that the government is open, transparent, and accountable to the citizens it is supposed to serve.
The community of Great Bend, like much of rural Kansas, has changed over the years, with more and more Hispanic residents and the Chief’s concerns that distributing tickets to generate revenue is a practice best avoided is something we’ve seen repeated in community after community.
His charge that Great Bend looked to end or diminish the race relations board was never investigated. Members of the community, however, lobbied over the course of a month for his return, praising his commitment to transparency and honesty.
No matter where Chief Couch goes, he will leave Great Bend, Kansas with a lot of fans, and certainly a different kind of story about police duty to tell.