Police Force Quits After Black Woman Elected Mayor

[aGameOfThrones]

Employees of one small Missouri town had an extreme*reaction when residents elected their*first Black female mayor: 80% of the police department quit, along with the city clerk and two other staffers.*

Tyrus Byrd, a former Parma, MO*city council member, was sworn into office as mayor*last week, but she will*have to deal with a police force with only one person. Five of the town's six police officers submitted letters of resignation last week, citing only*"safety concerns," according to news station KFVS.*

No one knows yet exactly*what "safety concerns" would make a town's public safety officers quit en masse, but Byrd has said she is still determined to clean up the city.*To make the mass resignations even more suspicious,*KFVS also reported that when Byrd started her first day, the officers' resignation letters could not be found, and that computers had been wiped clean.

Byrd won a close election against*longtime Mayor Randall Ramsey, who held*the office for*37 years.*The population of Parma is slightly more than 700*people, and Byrd won by less than 40 votes.*The city attorney, clerk, and waste water treatment supervisor also resigned with the police officers.*

http://www.refinery29.com/2015/04/85...ck-woman-mayor

[morfeeis]

While a dirtball move i9t was only five people that quit (two or three of which were part time). i think the town only had like 700 residents or something like that too. It just sounds like a bunch of good ol boys got bitter about their loss and took "their ball" and went home.

Just shows that even on a small level government just freaking breeds corruption.....

[FSP-Rebel]

What's up with all the asterisks in the commentary? They aren't there on the link.

[Valli6]

What's up with all the asterisks in the commentary? They aren't there on the link.

I've noticed that when you cut and paste a paragraph to this forum, sometimes asterisks appear in the "spaces" , even though they are not visible in the original text.

[jbauer]

Good for them. Now they have to find a job and there is 5 openings for the new mayor to fill. Those folks used their 1st amendment rights.

While a dirtball move i9t was only five people that quit (two or three of which were part time). i think the town only had like 700 residents or something like that too. It just sounds like a bunch of good ol boys got bitter about their loss and took "their ball" and went home.

Just shows that even on a small level government just freaking breeds corruption.....

[thoughtomator]

sounds like jobs opened up for a forensic investigator and an auditor

[specsaregood]

sounds like jobs opened up for a forensic investigator and an auditor

Sounds to me like I need to find a viable black woman to run for mayor of the town.

[tod evans]

Government employees quitting is NEVER a bad thing.....

Trying to blame their behavior on either race or sex IS a bad thing...

[nobody's_hero]

37 years the prior mayor was in office. 37. Say it again! 37!!!.

The whole $#@!ing town needs to resign . . . from voting. What the $#@! is the point?

[jmdrake]

Sounds to me like I need to find a viable black woman to run for mayor of the town.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to specsaregood again.

[RJB]

Sounds to me like I need to find a viable black woman to run for mayor of the town.

Or the country.

Maybe we went wrong with Obama. Do you think that if we elected a black woman as president we would be blessed with 80% of the police quitting across the country?

[GunnyFreedom]

While a dirtball move i9t was only five people that quit (two or three of which were part time). i think the town only had like 700 residents or something like that too. It just sounds like a bunch of good ol boys got bitter about their loss and took "their ball" and went home.

Just shows that even on a small level government just freaking breeds corruption.....

When I first read it I was angry and offended, but the more I thought about it, now she can hire four of whomever she wants. Go out and arrest the former deputies for public endangerment for wiping their computers, and hold a very public trial where it boils down to "give us the data or go to prison." The new mayor gets to be the hero who cleaned up the scumbags and probably win bigger next time, and you get to shed 80% of the town's inertia right up front and hire all new people to run the place from stem to stern.

All these new people you don't have to fire or wait out will allow the mayor to establish her leadership far quicker and more profoundly than had any of them stuck around. She will become entrenched almost immediately. If the place doesn't magically break out in crime and riots she will probably keep being mayor until she does something else really stupid.

So it's all offensive and you get mad at the ignoramus and then you realize the ignoramus is actually stabbing himself in the eyes and throwing money at the feet of the new mayor.

Seriously, this kind of thing is how you go from "okay we will try something new, maybe" into "hero Mayor saves the day!"

The ignoramuses totally martyred the Mayor, which will give her like a 15-20 point tailwind.

If they really didn't like this new Mayor, they totally and utterly surrendered and capitulated to her.

It's not like there will suddenly be a crime wave in a town of 700, unless these four disgruntled are the criminals.

[PaulConventionWV]

37 years the prior mayor was in office. 37. Say it again! 37!!!.

The whole $#@!ing town needs to resign . . . from voting. What the $#@! is the point?

They might as well have called him King.

[GunnyFreedom]

Government employees quitting is NEVER a bad thing.....

I couldn't possibly agree more.

Trying to blame their behavior on either race or sex IS a bad thing...

Let's be realistic here. This isn't a court of law. This is just a town in Missouri. What really are the chances that it's NOT just a bunch of good ol' boys bitchin how they won't let a black woman tell them what to do? If it walks like a duck.

I think it's going to backfire on them pretty badly though.

[William Tell]

Yeah, cops quitting is usually good. But the headline? There are plenty of people in my town I would not want to work for if they were elected mayor and I was a city employee. Regardless of skin color.

[William Tell]

What really are the chances that it's NOT just a bunch of good ol' boys bitchin how they won't let a black woman tell them what to do?

I have no idea. I don't even see anything in the article saying what race(s) the city employees and cops belong to.

[specsaregood]

/.

[GunnyFreedom]

Yeah, cops quitting is usually good. But the headline? There are plenty of people in my town I would not want to work for if they were elected mayor and I was a city employee. Regardless of skin color.

Sure, a few people here and there will leave and eventually the turnover will be complete. But everybody all at once, and without any kind of hand-off at all? That's punitive.

[GunnyFreedom]

What exactly are you suggesting about us good ol' Missouri boys?

Nothin different than I'd suggest about any of a dozen other states in the region, including mine.

A little two horse town anywhere in the southern Bible belt and every job filled with good old white boys. Town elects a black female Mayor and basically everybody quits on the spot, without even a document handoff. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on.

[specsaregood]

/.

[aGameOfThrones]

Sure, a few people here and there will leave and eventually the turnover will be complete. But everybody all at once, and without any kind of hand-off at all? That's punitive.

Specially Lordship positions

[juleswin]

Maybe they just quit because they thought they are not worthy to work for her. She should see it as a compliment.

[angelatc]

Here's someone who perfectly articulated the thoughts I was trying to put together:

Of course, the media is quickly jumping to the conclusion that all those police and city officials are a bunch of filthy racists, when I’m willing to wager that’s not the case at all.


The outgoing mayor, Randall Ramsey said those city officials resigned because of “safety concerns.” That’s almost certainly bull$#@! too. But it’s far more likely that these officers and city officials resigned because after 37 years, they’re no longer able to hide their corrupt dealings. For example, why does a city of 700 people need six police officers? And with a crime rate much higher than the national average.

The town council looks to be mixed race, so I suspect the community is also mixed. So the racism angle does not make sense to me.

Edited to add: Yes, it is a mixed race town, and dirt poor too.

[RJB]

TBH, I've lived in quite a few states and I saw and heard a lot less overt racism in MO and other such states than in blue states. The most blatant racism I ever heard from white folk has been in CA and NJ -- they just hide it better in public.

Same here. The people I've known with heavy southern accents are usually disgusted by northerners who say some of the most off the wall racist stuff, solely because they believe all people with a southern accents are racists.

I have a Midwestern accent, and from my own experience, those with a New England accent usually have said the most racists statement in casual conversations. However on TV when ever someone is a racist, they always have a stereotypical southern accent.

[GunnyFreedom]

I have no idea. I don't even see anything in the article saying what race(s) the city employees and cops belong to.

The character of the separation tells me there is something deeper and more emotional going on than politics or religion. Let's say I'm a cop and I really hate the new Chief. I'll still at least stick around for a week and show the new guy where the parking lot and break rooms are.

Say she was politically or personally reviled by whatever group actually worked for the city. You would expect to see resignations clustered around the first 4 weeks, with some overlap as documents and equipment ands such is handed over to the new regime. You wouldn't expect them to utterly deny her a turnover unless they...all...hated her more than they loved the town they had just spent the last 30+ years serving.

What's going on is not rational, it is emotional and visceral, and deeply irrational. They are doing direct and fundamental harm to the societies they have served for decades, in the hopes of slinging mud at this woman in passing. Without some enormous problem to justify the total denial of a handoff, the simplest explanation is bigotry of some kind.

It may be race bigotry, gender bigotry, or even party bigotry, who knows? For all the pluck I know it could be a masonic lodge thing, and these workers are bigoted against non-masons. The kind or origin of the bigotry isn't really the point as much as the character of these mass resignations totally reeks of organized bigotry of some kind. At that point it's all Occam's Razor and probability curves.

[RJB]

It may be race bigotry, gender bigotry, or even party bigotry, who knows? For all the pluck I know it could be a masonic lodge thing, and these workers are bigoted against non-masons. The kind or origin of the bigotry isn't really the point as much as the character of these mass resignations totally reeks of organized bigotry of some kind. At that point it's all Occam's Razor and probability curves.

Small towns are REALLY weird, to outsiders. I lived in one where it was rare to see someone in the grocery store you didn't know. Grudges go back years, even centuries. Gossip goes crazy.

The town I lived in was heavily democrat because they had been since the civil war. A town 15 miles a way was heavily republican for the same reason even though politically one person may agree more with the other party they were still loyal to what they knew from their family.

One of the oddest things I heard on a committee was this one older lady was viciously against another woman getting appointed. She finally growled, "You can't trust her! Her family was on the wrong side in the war." I later learned she was talking about the Civil War.

My wife became the enemy of the town gossip and had had enough so we moved. It was weird. Someone could have moved there over 20 years before and they were still considered outsiders.

I know some of this sounds crazy and unbelievable, but it's true.

[GunnyFreedom]

TBH, I've lived in quite a few states and I saw and heard a lot less overt racism in MO and other such states than in blue states. The most blatant racism I ever heard from white folk has been in CA and NJ -- they just hide it better in public.

I agree with some of the most blatant racism coming from urbanish New England. The rural south doesn't ordinarily talk about it. There is something that has repulsed the former workers (more than just the cops).

It could be, as was just suggested, graft and the crooks are fleeing discovery like rats.

You don't run like that unless you are dirty. Dirty bigots, dirty criminals, I don't honestly gaf. They totally abandoned their city in a moment because they didn't like the new Mayor. God rot em.

As soon as I saw the character of the resignations I knew they were dirty. I don't honestly care why they are dirty. Burn em.

[William Tell]

The character of the separation tells me there is something deeper and more emotional going on than politics or religion. Let's say I'm a cop and I really hate the new Chief. I'll still at least stick around for a week and show the new guy where the parking lot and break rooms are.

Say she was politically or personally reviled by whatever group actually worked for the city. You would expect to see resignations clustered around the first 4 weeks, with some overlap as documents and equipment ands such is handed over to the new regime. You wouldn't expect them to utterly deny her a turnover unless they...all...hated her more than they loved the town they had just spent the last 30+ years serving.

What's going on is not rational, it is emotional and visceral, and deeply irrational. They are doing direct and fundamental harm to the societies they have served for decades, in the hopes of slinging mud at this woman in passing. Without some enormous problem to justify the total denial of a handoff, the simplest explanation is bigotry of some kind.

It may be race bigotry, gender bigotry, or even party bigotry, who knows? For all the pluck I know it could be a masonic lodge thing, and these workers are bigoted against non-masons. The kind or origin of the bigotry isn't really the point as much as the character of these mass resignations totally reeks of organized bigotry of some kind. At that point it's all Occam's Razor and probability curves.

Maybe. But I'm not sure its bigotry. It could have been fear for example, maybe she promised to investigate some shady stuff of the past administration. Or they knew she was going to change directions in a way they didn't want to go. I think that's an awful lot of people to quit over something petty. But then again, I guess a lot of government employees are petty.

[tod evans]

Let's see here, Bootheel of Mo. and Teh-Newz pushing the sexist/racism angle hard-n-heavy.......

Some of us here buy into it......



Being an Ozark native I'm pretty familiar with the folks over in the flatlands and they're pretty much the same all up-n-down the Mississippi valley, far more sexism than racism...

But that's okay, carry on ya'll.......

[tony m]

Small towns are REALLY weird, to outsiders. I lived in one where it was rare to see someone in the grocery store you didn't know. Grudges go back years, even centuries. Gossip goes crazy.

The town I lived in was heavily democrat because they had been since the civil war. A town 15 miles a way was heavily republican for the same reason even though politically one person may agree more with the other party they were still loyal to what they knew from their family.

One of the oddest things I heard on a committee was this one older lady was viciously against another woman getting appointed. She finally growled, "You can't trust her! Her family was on the wrong side in the war." I later learned she was talking about the Civil War.

My wife became the enemy of the town gossip and had had enough so we moved. It was weird. Someone could have moved there over 20 years before and they were still considered outsiders.

I know some of this sounds crazy and unbelievable, but it's true.

It is not crazy. Had my personal experiences of city vs. rural living. I think once your an outsider you maybe are always an outsider.