CMPD Command Seeks to Terminate Officer

According to a local news station CMPD has suspended an officer who logged off on the afternoon of deadly shootout, and has transferred another.

An internal email confirms the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department took action against two officers who logged off before and during April 29 ambush which left 4 law enforcement officers dead.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks, Task Force Officers Alden Elliot and Sam Poloche and CMPD Officer Joshua Eyer died at the hands of a gunman on the afternoon of April 29. 

Several other officers suffered injuries. A federal task force was attempting to serve a warrant on the fugitive at the time of the ambush.

The report:

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department suspended one of its own in the days after WCNC Charlotte questioned why some police logged off their radios before and as a gunman killed four officers, public records show.

CMPD won't reveal why the agency took action against that patrol officer. A spokesperson said, by statute, the department can't release certain details about personnel matters, calling that "confidential and not a matter of public record."

"From his file, it appears that the officer has been suspended pending the civil service review," CMPD Director of Public Affairs Sandy D'Elosua Vastola said in an email to WCNC Charlotte. "We don't have anything further to share at this time."

As of Thursday afternoon, the Civil Service Board had yet to set a hearing date for the officer, according to the city clerk.

In the aftermath of the deadly east Charlotte shootout on April 29, multiple officers shared concerns with WCNC Charlotte about a small number of their colleagues who were seemingly unavailable to respond that afternoon. WCNC Charlotte brought questions to CMPD on behalf of the hundreds of on- and off-duty police who responded to the Galway Drive shooting. In response, the agency dismissed their concerns and called WCNC Charlotte's reporting "irresponsible" and "a slam job."

Since May, WCNC Charlotte has repeatedly requested information about two officers in particular. An internal email sent to Vastola on May 29, recently obtained through a public records request, confirmed both officers were among those who logged off the radio on April 29. Upon sharing that revelation with the department, the spokesperson, citing state law, told WCNC Charlotte CMPD should not have released portions of that email.

"I would respectfully request that you do not publish that portion of the email as it was sent to you in error from our Public Records Department," Vastola said. "Specifically, the (logoff) sentence is protected personnel information."

A month-and-a-half before CMPD suspended the one officer, WCNC Charlotte filmed him working desk duty in June. That change to his employment lasted for weeks, but despite WCNC Charlotte's repeated questions, the department never reflected the temporary work assignment in the publicly releasable portions of his personnel file.

When asked, the department spokesperson said North Carolina public records law does not allow agencies to release public information about "current" work assignments or work schedules.

The officer's work status officially changed to suspended on July 31, according to his file. The suspension came just days after WCNC Charlotte aired its investigation and followed a Facebook post by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police criticizing the department's response to WCNC Charlotte's reporting.

"Now we know now several weeks later that this was 100% true; that your facts were 100% correct," FOP President Daniel Redford told WCNC Charlotte. "There's validity to what you were asking about. We know for 100% certainty that an officer has been punished for logging off. Granted, there may be some other things behind it, but (that) was one of them. It goes to show that your 'irresponsible' 'slam job' article that you wrote wasn't irresponsible on your part."

Even as a former FBI agent and a retired FBI assistant director called for more openness in the wake of the deadliest day for law enforcement in Charlotte history, CMPD's spokesperson "strongly" cautioned WCNC Charlotte from moving forward with a story, noting the sensitive nature of the day's events.

Ultimately, the department refused "to speculate" about why some officers were seemingly unavailable.

"It's not that they logged off. It's what their logging off represents as far as the response from the department," Redford said. "As tragic as it is, I don't want to see people using it as an excuse to forgo answering questions, because it might not fit a certain criteria of what they want their agency to look like."

Redford said the department's dismissive response prompted the FOP to take a public stand against the spokesperson's handling of this situation.

An internal email confirms the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department took action against two officers who logged off before and during April 29 ambush.

The Char-Meck FOP FaceBooK Post:

Whether you agree with Nate Morabito on this article or not, we can say the concerns he raises in this article are true and our Lodge received the same information. We can say that not every officer who logged off did so intentionally; however, questions remain on a few and is why Nate felt the need to inquire about it and later publish an article about it.

The point of our post is not so much on the topic of Nate’s story, but on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s response to it. Nate cites that CMPD is not going to speculate; however, they have the ability to conduct an easy and quick Internal Affairs (IA)Investigation. It would raise enough concern that officers intentionally logged off and would be in the wheelhouse of IA, as there were nearly 20 who logged off in the minutes around the shooting. We feel every officer would expect an investigation be conducted and appropriate action taken IF someone logged off to purposely avoid responding to a call for help. Again, not everyone who logged off did so nefariously.

CMPD’s IA is fully capable of quickly getting these answers for CMPD to provide to Nate without identifying anyone. IA pulled over 40 people in for interviews over memes being made - so they could ask questions here too.

It’s pretty bad when the former Assistant Director of the FBI says CMPD should be a bit more transparent. Instead of more transparency, CMPD PIO Director Sandy D’Elosua Vastola attacked Nate Morabito calling his article “irresponsible” and a “slam job.”

All Nate did was ask a question that CMPD refused to answer and one that several of CMPD’s own employees were concerned with. CMPD conveniently hides behind state personnel law when there is the appearance something is amiss, yet CMPD Chief Jennings couldn’t wait to spill the name, punishment, and intimate details of an officer involved in an arrest that went viral. You can’t use law to skate answering questions then forget a law exists when it’s a good look for you.

Chief Jennings says he has fought so hard to make CMPD a premier agency, yet the mouth piece of his department resorts to petty nastiness whenever she doesn’t like the questions being asked.

Sandy, we are not public affairs experts but this is how we would have handled this: (these are how we envision a conversation going if we were in Sandy’s position)

WCNC’s Reporter: Hi CMPD, some officers have raised concerns about a handful of officers who logged off during the April 29th shooting, can you provide any details?

How we would respond: WCNC Reporter, thank you for the inquiry. While we are unaware of this specifically, we’ll be glad to ask and get back with you.

WCNC’s Reporter: Thank you

How we would respond: WCNC Reporter, sorry for the delay but we found an answer for you. We do see that there were several log offs around the time the incident occurred but (depending on what was found) 1) none were found to have intentionally logged off, or 2) most were found to have not intentionally logged off and we are looking further into 1 or 2 to get more details. We thank you for you the partnership and do want to point out the heroism of all law enforcement officers that day. What you may not know is that dozens of CMPD officers who were on their day off came in wanting to help. We would like the public to know about them while we sort out and get answers on those who logged off.

WCNC’s Reporter: Thank you for the reply and answers. You all have a lot of heroes and it’s comforting to know. (News article not published because CMPD was transparent).

To Sandy D’Elousa Vastola, try being little nicer, you are representing the department, its employees and the City of Charlotte.