In the first full city council meeting since the independent review on the Decatur Police Department came out, Standing In Power members, once again, made their position clear about Police Chief Todd Pinion.
"Yes, we want him out," said Terrance Adkins, co-founder of Standing In Power. "Because even with the report, even before the report, there are things that he could have done that are minute changes between the department and different places, different people, and places in Decatur, and he decided not to do that."
In the work session a week ago, two city council members expressed wavering support for Pinion, saying they had hoped to see changes sooner than the report's recommendations.
Jacob Ladner was not at that meeting. In this meeting, he let everyone know he had to ask himself one question. In the wake of everything that's happened over the last 16 months, is Pinion the right chief to lead the city of Decatur through this?
"If the answer is yes, I got to know what is the evidence to support that," said Ladner. "And I just haven't, haven't seen that unfortunately, over the last 16 months. So, that's where I kind of landed. I just haven't seen the evidence that the chief is the right guy for us right now."
Pinion has said on several occasions since the review that he will make changes, based on Green Research and Technology's recommendations and has started to do that. Ladner and his fellow councilmen say they'll need to see more of that.
"I think the chief, to his credit, over the last couple of weeks, has said he's going to fix those things that were concerning," added Ladner. "And so we got to make sure that we continue to ask those questions and see how he's implementing those changes."
