Shelley working to rebuild W’burg Police Department’s image

Following the resignation of one of his officers Friday, who tested positive for drugs, Williamsburg Police Chief Denny Shelley says one of the hardest things for his department will be regaining the public trust.
“It’s been a bad situation. It leaves police with a black eye,” Shelley said. “Now we are going to have to work hard to get a good reputation back, which is going to take some time. We know it is going to take good, honest hard work to earn trust back by some of the citizens.”
He admits that it won’t be easy.
“A lot of people really don’t like police. It is really hard for some people to trust the police,” Shelley said. “This gives everybody a black eye. There is good and bad in every job. We just have to work hard now to try and earn the public’s trust back.
“We are trying to be courteous as much as we can to earn their trust back. Trust is like leadership. You don’t demand it. You earn it. We have to earn this trust back from the community.”

Stricter policies implemented
Shelley said when he was appointed police chief in April, he discussed the matter with Harrison that day and implemented new general orders.
He said policies addressed complaints about tailgating, and officers were told to be more observant with driving with their lights and sirens on, and to drive the speed limit when just out patrolling.
“It was just general things that we wanted to see our police department be,” Harrison said. “It was 15 points of emphasis. We just want officers to be more people friendly I guess, more community oriented.”
Shelley noted that Williamsburg isn’t New York or Chicago, and officers know more of the people they are dealing.
“We have the luxury of knowing a lot of people we police,” he said. “A lot of times that makes it easier if you know someone. Sometimes it makes it rougher. You have to police someone you know real well.
“It allows us to have a closer tie, and know what is going on in our community than in a lot of places. The mayor and I are talking about having meetings every so often so people can come in and address their questions, their complaints and what they want to see the department do.
“I will be open to any suggestions, any complaints and I take complaints seriously.”
Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison said he thinks part of the reason the public’s trust may have gone away a little bit during this process is the long time frame it took for action to be taken following the accident.
Nighbert’s wreck happened on April 12, yet his personnel hearing wasn’t set to take place until Sept. 8, and he resigned shortly before it was scheduled to take place.
“The time was because this is way it had to be done. We had to do this right. We did not want to put the City of Williamsburg in any kind of jeopardy whatsoever, and do something wrong,” Harrison said.

What took so long?
“Actually, it’s a real fair question,” Harrison admits. “If you think it hard for the public to understand, imagine how hard it was for us to say that it was still under investigation. That was the legal term we had to use. There was nothing we could do.”
Under Kentucky Revised Statute 15.520, subsection (f) “When a police officer has been charged with a violation of departmental rules or regulations, no public statements shall be made concerning the alleged violation by any person or persons of the local unit of government or the police officer so charged, until final disposition of the charges.”
Harrison said due to this investigation, he has become more familiar with this statute than he ever thought possible.
The biggest holdup in the investigation was obtaining Nighbert’s toxicology test results, officials said.
Shelley said he had heard rumors, but didn’t actually receive a copy of the state police toxicology report until about seven to 10 days before it was leaked to the media on Aug. 14.
“We can’t go with hearsay evidence in a criminal case or in an administrative case,” he added. “Everybody had heard rumors on the toxicology, but we didn’t officially get a report until August. The rumors were out, but we had no evidence basically.”
Both Shelley and Harrison said the findings in the toxicology report that was published by the media are consistent with the findings turned up during the course of the city’s internal investigation.

Special meeting held
Shelley noted that the following week after he received the toxicology report, Harrison scheduled a special called city council meeting for Aug. 14 to update the council on the investigation.
The purpose of the council meeting was to inform the council that the decision had been made to suspended Nighbert without pay, officials said.
Shelley said Nighbert was living out of town, and it took him about five days to track down Nighbert and serve him with the paperwork notifying him that he was suspended after the council meeting.
Shelley said the toxicology report itself was probably prepared a little faster than normal because the situation involved a police officer, or it might have taken longer to get the results.
After getting the report, Harrison and Shelley said they had to contact the city attorney and the Kentucky League of Cities in order to make sure they took the next proper steps as required by law.
Once the decision was made to suspended Nighbert, Harrison said city officials researched the matter to see if they could suspend him with or without pay, and for how long.
Shelley added that it took city officials less than one month after getting the toxicology report to suspend the officer, get a hearing date that everyone could attend, and then receive the officer’s resignation.

Hearing twice delayed
The initial administrative hearing was scheduled for Aug. 28, but Harrison said the hearing had to be delayed because Nighbert’s attorney was scheduled to be out of town for an annual trip.
The hearing was rescheduled for Sept. 5, but had to be delayed again until Sept. 8 because the toxicologist couldn’t attend the Sept. 5 hearing.
Nighbert’s hearing was scheduled to take place at 3 p.m. Friday.
Harrison said Nighbert’s lawyer delivered the resignation to assistant city attorney Jason Price’s office, who in turn delivered it to him about 2:45 p.m. Friday.