Last week, I posted a story about Asheville’s incoming Chief of Police William Anderson’s past jobs, which includes charges of racism, a domineering management style and at least one instance of Anderson himself being negligent. At first, the only thing reported by both print media outlets were articles that read mostly like reprints of the city’s own press release announcing the new hire. But in the last few days, the Asheville Citizen-Times has looked in to the allegations originally brought forth on this blog. At first, I was okay with that. At least someone in the press is doing their job. But something is still not right with this entire matter.
Back in school when doing algebra homework, we were always told to make sure our equations balance – the problems on one side of the equal sign needed to match with the stuff on the other side in order for the problem to be correct. There’s something about the incoming Chief’s statements regarding his past to the local media and the statements that he’s made in the past not lining up that is making me a little uneasy.
In the Citizen-Times article, Anderson is quoted as saying this regarding the racism allegations. “There were no allegations of racism,” he said. “I don’t even recall any allegations of reverse discrimination or anything like that.”
But in an article from the Orlando Sentinel dated May 3, 2002 Anderson is quoted denying the allegations of racism leveled against him by two dispatchers:
“I based my decision on the recommendations of the interview committee,” the chief said. “Race had no bearing on this whatsoever.”
In the complaint, [Deland dispatcher Wendy] Hargis also contends that the hiring committee was abruptly changed a week before interviews for the two open positions began. She claims that two Police Department employees were replaced by a city employee and a Police Department volunteer, neither of whom was qualified to interview candidates.
[Fellow dispatcher Mylan] Sessions said that change was a key reason many of their qualifications were overlooked.
Anderson said that simply isn’t true.
“This is a community-service officer position that mans our front desk,” Anderson explained, “with no specific requirements other than a high-school diploma. The goal was to get community input in the hiring process, and that is what took place.”
I’m sort of confused as to how Anderson says he doesn’t recall the allegations now, but in 2002 he gave an interview to the local press about the issue. It doesn’t add up.
At the present time, I’m trying to contact members of the Deland Police Department that served under Anderson in an attempt to find out for myself if these allegations are true or just the words of bitter ex-employees. I’ll have more information as it becomes available.
