I hope the entire police force AND the mayor go to prison for a long time. What a travesty.
JERICHO, AR - The tiny town of Jericho, Arkansas, is making big news. The fire chief was recently shot in the back by a police officer while in court disputing a traffic ticket. Don Payne spent three weeks recovering at The Med and was just fired from his job as fire chief.
The entire volunteer department of nearly 20 firefighters quit as a sign of their support for Payne. The mayor says people who live in the town are safe, despite not having a fire department.
“I’m concerned about the fire department because that’s my job,” Payne said. “That was my responsibility.”
Jericho Mayor Helen Adams wouldn’t say why she fired Chief Don Payne for inappropriate conduct. We asked Mayor Adams if people should feel safe without a fire department.
“They know we’re working on that, and we’re going to get it under… we already got it under control,” Adams said. “We don’t have to be worried about the citizens getting fire protection, because we can handle that.”
We asked the Mayor just how they planned on handling that.
“Well, I can’t. We’re working it out, we’re working on it now,” Adams said. “When I terminated him, we got to working on it, and we’ve been working on it ever since then.”
The Marion Fire Department is the closest sizable department to Jericho and often responds to calls in the area. The chief there says no one from Jericho has contacted him.
Mayor Adams says she’s already told everyone in Jericho they have nothing to worry about in terms of the fire department.
“The concerned citizen,” Adams said. “They already knew.”
Prosecutors say they plan to charge former Fire Chief Don Payne with battery on a police officer. The officer who shot him faces no charges.
More going on here than meets the eye.
Who are the crooks here?
Revenues will get far more slim during the years to come, while property taxes, “impact fees” and traffic citations go much higher. ...many lessons to come. Stock-up on popcorn.
Let’s see. The fire chief goes to traffic court to contest a ticket. The judge dismisses the ticket and then resigns. The cops shoot the fire chief in the back at court, and the prosector wants to charge the chief with a crime. Then the chief resigns along with the entire fire department, so the cops go out and write a ticket on an old guy doing 58 MPH in his driveway.
Then the mayor says “Everything is under control.”
I think there’s a story somewhere.