Allegations are flying in Oakdale after the City Council's firing of a patrol officer and the police union's no-confidence vote in Chief Bill Sullivan.
During a discussion Tuesday night of officer Sean Coffey's termination, which Sullivan recommended, a letter from the union said to represent the views of many of the patrol officers and investigators in the Police Department was presented to council members.
The letter, from Law Enforcement Labor Services Local 197, alleged that Sullivan has been unresponsive to officer concerns that he has "allowed supervisors to blatantly harass some members of the department over extended periods of time," and that a new captain in the department had made sexually inappropriate comments to officers.
"As a result of Chief Sullivan's poor leadership, morale among the patrol officers is extremely low," said the union's letter, which called for an investigation into department practices.
Oakdale has 31 officers.
Sullivan said Wednesday that the union letter misrepresented his leadership style with out-of-context comments. "It was very disappointing to me. At least I believed that I've always been very accessible," said Sullivan, who became Oakdale's police chief in 1988 after he was police chief in Emmetsburg, Iowa.
Sullivan took issue with the way the union handled the allegation about sexual comments. "We've tolerated no nonsense like that from any person in any rank," he said. "There was never a person who came forward and complained."
An independent investigator the city hired is now looking into the allegations against Capt. Jack Kettler, Sullivan said. Kettler was named in the union letter. Sullivan also acknowledged turnover in the police ranks, but said that two of his officers now are police chiefs in Stillwater and Waseca; and former Capt. Bill Hutton is now Washington County's sheriff. Also, young Oakdale officers tend to get hired at the St. Paul Police Department, he said.
