WINGATE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The former Wingate Police chief says he was told by the town manager to let two officers go after they spoke up at a town meeting Tuesday night to disband the town's police department.
“Our future is on the chopping block,” said Wingate Police officer Sterling Hall to the crowd gathered at the meeting on Tuesday.
“You should be able to vote,” Officer Randy Down told the crowd.
Despite the officers’ pleas to save their jobs, town leaders voted to disband the Wingate Police Department.
Wingate residents hug members of the police department.Immediately after the meeting, the former police chief, who says his last day on the job was Tuesday, says Officers Down and Hall were let go.
The former chief says the town manager came to him and told him to tell Officers Down and Hall that “their services” were “no longer needed.”
“I think it’s very bad, I think when employees can’t speak their opinion when asked,” said Matt Tarlton, the former police chief of the nearby Marshville Police Department.
Tarlton has been talking with the officers at Wingate.
Matt Tarlton, former police chief of Marshville Police Department.Many don’t know exactly when their last day will be.
“They feel like they’ve been betrayed by the town, that the town didn’t back them, they feel like they’ve been abandoned,” said Tarlton.
The seven-officer department has been short-staffed for about the last two years and has struggled to keep officers and compete with larger agencies.
The town estimates that disbanding the police force will save around $300,000. The taxpayers will still pay four deputies from the Union County Sheriff’s Office to work in the town 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“When you call 911, there will still be an officer that responds quickly or a deputy that responds quickly to resolve whatever situation you’re facing. This is not a way to take away law enforcement services from this town. It is simply a transition to the sheriff’s office,” said Lt. James Maye with the Union County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office currently contracts deputies to cover Lake Park, Indian Trail, Weddington, Marvin, and Wesley Chapel, and plans to add Wingate and be fully transitioned with the town by September or October.
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