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By Bonnie Culverhouse
After a very long day of testimony, the end result of a Police and Fire Civil Service hearing to reinstate Jason Smith to the Minden Police Department was a unanimous vote to deny.
Convening at 9 a.m. Thursday until well after 6:30 p.m., the board heard testimony from four of five Minden City Councilpersons, three Minden PD officers, the police chief and Smith.
Councilman Andy Pendergrass said during the executive session where the council made their unanimous decision to terminate Smith’s employment, they watched videos, listened to audios and and discussed if there were any way to save what he called a “valuable asset to the police department.”
“We looked for some other type of discipline that wasn’t termination,” Pendergrass said. “We get he was an asset and we didn’t want to lose that. But the things we couldn’t get past … we couldn’t get past the pre-termination hearing.”
Smith’s pre-termination hearing followed a meeting in June among Chief Jared McIver, Smith, Lt. Shane Griffith, Capt. Keith King, Det. Jason Lee and Det. Mathew Hicks, where McIver asked questions of the group concerning ways to make the department better.
The talk segued into discussion of the recent termination of Lt. Chris Hammontree when Smith asked questions of McIver concerning the reasons, saying officers were concerned they may arrest “the wrong person” and be fired. From there, it escalated into what McIver referred to as disrespectful, with raised voices and cursing.
“Lt. Smith said the district attorney was corrupt and it went all the way back down, which suggests to me that it went through me (chief), and the Internal Affairs investigators (Hicks and Griffith),” McIver said.
At the Thursday hearing, the same video and audio recordings were seen and heard by those in the audience. According to an audio recording, the discussion became heated, and led to some dissension among those officers present and Smith.
“Smith was insubordinate in the meeting … belligerent,” King said.
A disciplinary/pre-termination hearing was held July 10. Hicks testified that Smith appeared in a tee shirt, shorts and Crocs.
“That told me he didn’t want his job back,” Hicks said. “That’s not behavior indicative of a leader. He was argumentative and belligerent.”
Smith admitted to making comments about the DA and chief being corrupt but denied being disrespectful.
In the pre-termination hearing, and at other times, Smith said Griffith had threatened his family members.
“If he threatens my wife again, he will disappear,” Smith admitted to saying.
One board member asked Smith if he were to be reinstated, how would he be able to go back to the Minden Police Department with the person he threatened.
“I would continue doing what I have been doing,” he said. “I will come back and be productive.”
Following closing statements by legal counsel for City of Minden and Smith, the civil service board moved into executive session around 6:04 p.m. At 6:35, they returned to announce the unanimous vote to uphold Smith’s termination.