Small Georgia town’s mayor doesn’t know what happens next after firing entire police department

The town council in a small mountain community in the US state of Georgia called a special meeting on Friday evening to discuss reinstating the police department after the mayor fired the chief and all the officers.

The notice for the meeting, posted outside the Cohutta town hall, says the council will also consider a request for the mayor’s “immediate resignation”.

Another sign posted days earlier in the town of about 930 people announced that the police department had been dissolved “per mayor Ron Shinnick”. It told people who need help to call a non-emergency county number.

The jobs of the chief and about 10 officers were terminated as of Wednesday morning. Exact reasons haven’t been shared publicly, and townspeople were hoping to get some answers at Friday’s meeting.

Shinnick said he took action because of some comments officers posted on social media. The now former police sergeant Jeremy May said it involved a complaint that he and other officers had raised about the mayor’s wife, Pam Shinnick, who had served as the town clerk.

“This all comes to personal vendetta from the mayor, and I wholeheartedly believe that,” May told the local news outlet WRCB. “We took a stand for transparency, and in result, every one of them has lost their jobs.”

The now former Cohutta police chief Greg Fowler told WRCB that he couldn’t comment in detail as the officers were clearing out the police department and removing equipment from the building. The mayor told the station he’s not sure what will happen next.

Phone calls and emails left on Friday by the Associated Press for Shinnick and the town’s attorney were not immediately returned.

With no police officers working, the Whitfield county sheriff’s office said in a brief statement that deputies will help the townspeople if they need it. Cohutta, just south of the Tennessee state line, is about 100 miles (161km) north-west of Atlanta.