A quick Google search uncovers a lot of information about some of the five candidates recommended to the city by the search committee.
A few even have a checkered past mired in controversy, allegations and lawsuits.
The top five selections, in alphabetical order, are: Curtis Brame, of North Chicago, Ill.; Nathaniel Clark, of Albany, Ga.; Robert Spinks, of Sequim, Wash.; Sam Lathrop, of Beloit, Wis.; and Selvain McQueen, of Columbus.
The 21-person police chief committee originally recommended five top candidates and three alternates, but one of the top-five selections withdrew from consideration, and one of the alternates took his place in the top-five group.
The city will not release the names of the alternate recommendations.
A total of 82 people, mostly from outside the area, applied for the position, and the trio of Chief Operating Officer David Armstrong, Mayor Robert Smith and Human Resources Director Pat Mitchell dwindled the number to 25 by eliminating unqualified candidates. The committee dwindled the 25 to five. The city required applicants to have at least 10 years of law enforcement experience, including supervisory experience as a division commander, assistant police chief or police chief.
Robert Spinks
Spinks worked as Sequim police chief from February 2005 to June 2010. Sequim city officials asked Spinks to resign from the department, according to the Peninsula Daily News. An article in the newspaper dated June 17, 2010 quoted a city official describing Spinks as “bombastic.”
The article reads, “(City Manager Steve Burkett) has said that Spinks is a good chief, but no longer a good match for Sequim’s needs.”
Spinks previously served as police chief in Milton-Freewater, Ore. from 1997-2001. According to a Citizen Review Online article dated Jan. 12, 2005, The Eastern Oregonian reported that Spinks was placed on “non-disciplinary administrative leave” when he resigned the chief’s job in Milton-Freewater at the end of a “bitter dispute with some members of the city council.”
“The paper reported that he had been accused of pressing his officers to campaign for specific candidates for city council,” the article reads. “Then, he resigned in 2001, blasting the council for terminating (then Milton-Freewater City Manager Bill Elliot) as a result of all the fighting in the previous months.”
The article states Elliot became Sequim city manager and hired Spinks as the police chief in 2005.
Spinks worked as an undersheriff in Benton County in 2001, but the same Citizen Review Online article reported other media outlets regarding past controversies.
“But according to articles in the Corvallis Gazette-Times, he resigned (as undersheriff) in Sept. 2001 after allegations that he had misused his weapon,” the article reads. “The Gazette-Times said he had been accused of pulling his gun and pointing it at a dartboard in a fire station, although the incident was never proven and he denied it took place. At the time he resigned, Spinks said he was quitting because he was having to work ‘exceeding long hours’ in the sheriff’s department there, and said the combination of work, school and family ‘didn’t work out’ for him.”
Spinks has around 30 years of policing experience and 12 years of police chief experience. He previously worked: as a trial court supervisor for the State of Oregon Judicial Department – 19th Judicial District from 2004-2005; and as the director of public safety for Bellevue College in Washington from 2002-2003. Spinks earned a Master of Science degree for Criminal Justice in 2005 from the University of Cincinnati.
Sam Lathrop
Lathrop retired as Beloit police chief in July 2009. According to a GazetteXtra article dated July 14, 2009, “concerns about a personal relationship between former Beloit Police Chief Sam Lathrop and a subordinate led to his decision to retire.”
According to the article, “there’s no specific anti-fraternization policy at the city.” The article states Lathrop was going through “divorce proceedings” when the relationship became public. In the article, Lathrop is cited saying the relationship did not negatively affect public safety in Beloit.
Lathrop worked in the Beloit Police Department for 31 years, and he served as police chief in Beloit for more than six years. He currently works as a law enforcement professional in the U.S. Army 4/10 Mountain Division, 1-30th Infantry Battalion. He mentors and trains Afghan National Police in Afghanistan. Lathrop earned an Associate Arts Degree in Criminal Justice in 1977 from Chippewa Valley Tech College in Wisconsin.
Selvain McQueen
McQueen, former head of the Columbus Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, has held the role of interim police chief since the City Council fired Joseph St. John from the post in July.
According to a previous article in The Commercial Dispatch, McQueen filed a number of complaints from 2004-2006 against the city and city officials.
According to court documents, McQueen, who is black, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity charge in 2004, alleging, “Since Oct. 24, 2003, I have been subjected to different terms and conditions of employment than my white co-workers; I have been assigned demeaning job tasks; I have been denied pay increases; I have been denied job duties which require taking a leadership role; and the mayor refuses to respond to my grievances.”
In 2005, McQueen filed a new EEOC charge “claiming he was denied reimbursement (for a management training course he attended) by Sanders in retaliation for the (first) EEOC charge and because of his race,” court documents said.
On May 18, 2006, McQueen filed a second amended complaint, adding Sanders and Rupp as defendants, alleging defamatory comments were made during an executive session of the City Council in 2004.
McQueen has more than 23 years of law enforcement experience and he accumulated 116 credit hours toward a Mass Communications degree at Jackson State University. He was Officer of the Year in 1997.
Curtis Brame
Brame works as the commander of the Support Services Division the North Chicago Police Department.
Brame, a lieutenant, filed a complaint against the city of North Chicago, the city’s mayor and the police chief earlier this year. The complaint was under the Whistleblower Act, and alleges that the chief “retaliated against him for disclosing information to the mayor concerning what (Brame) believes was criminal activity committed by the chief,” reads a legal opinion filed Sept. 6.
Brame had worked in the North Chicago Police Department since 1985. He worked as deputy chief of police of operations from 2001-2005 and works as commander of the Support Services Division. He has worked in a number of capacities within the department ranging from commander of the Patrol Division to master sergeant in investigations. He earned a degree in Criminal Justice Administrations in 2007 from Columbia College of Missouri.
Nathaniel Clark
Clark was an applicant for the Columbus police chief position in 2007 when the council voted to appoint Joseph St. John. Clark was one of four finalists in that hiring process.
According to a previous Commercial Dispatch story, Ward 1 Councilman Gene Taylor, who is black, made a motion to hire Clark, who is also black, and the motion was seconded by black Ward 4 Councilman Fred Stewart. However, four white councilmen – Ward 2 Councilman Doug Mackay, Ward 3 Councilman Gene Coleman, Ward 5 Councilman Jay Jordan and Ward 6 Councilman Jerry Kendall – voted against the motion. All four are no longer councilmen in Columbus.
The same string of motions and voting patterns occurred for current Assistant Police Chief Joe Johnson, and it resulted in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the city.
Clark was since hired by the Albany Police Department in 2008 as the director of the Office of Professional Standards. Clark previously served as a criminal investigator with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office from 2003-2008 and as police chief in Pine Bluff, Ark. from 2000-2002. He worked in the Pine Bluff Police Department for a total of 20 years, with positions ranging from shift commander to Internal Affairs Division commander. Clark earned a degree in criminal justice from the University of Pine Bluff in Arkansas.
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