Inside AVL: After Asheville police beating scandal, fire city manager or police chief?

ASHEVILLE - In fallout from a police beating scandal, the City Council has dismissed the man entrusted for 13 years with the day-to-day operations of North Carolina's largest western city.

But a question asked after that news broke is, did the council lay the blame in the right place by firing now ex-city manager Gary Jackson, nine months before his announced retirement date?

Should Police Chief Tammy Hooper have been removed instead — or in addition to Jackson? Some people advocated that path.

With the information we have now, we don't know why the council fired Jackson, though we can make some pretty good assumptions, ranging from public appeasement to something more complicated behind the scenes.

Those who called for Hooper to leave include the most prominent expert on the local African-American experience, UNC Asheville professor Dwight Mullen who oversees the State of Black Asheville project.

Mullen was reacting to the chief's offer to resign if the community wanted it. Hooper made the statement March 7, a week after leaked body camera footage of the August police beating of a black resident accused of jaywalking brought widespread outrage.

Her resignation would be "an important statement to the community," the professor said.

But five members of the seven-member council who responded to the Citizen Times said they wanted the chief to stay. That included Sheneika Smith, one of two African-American council members.

Story continues below

MORE: City Council removes Gary Jackson as city manager

MORE: Boyle column: Asheville dropped the ball in Rush case

Smith said Hooper should have gotten a criminal investigation started immediately instead of waiting more than four months while proceeding with a noncriminal internal investigation into whether then-officer Chris Hickman should be fired. But the councilwoman also said she has "seen the most breakthrough" under Hooper in dealing with a "systemic disease that festers with the rank-and-file" officers.

In an important caveat, Smith said her support hinges on the outcome of an ongoing U.S. Justice Department investigation.

The other black council member, Keith Young, who is also a candidate for a Charlotte congressional district, did not respond. Although days later he said he wanted more people and officers to leave without specifying which people.

To be clear, in voting Tuesday to dismiss Jackson, the council made no mention of the beating, choking and shocking of resident Johnnie Rush by Hickman. That's despite council members having publicly expressed anger about the incident and at what they said was their lack of notification for six months until the Citizen Times' Feb. 28 publication of the leaked video.

Instead, council members in an official statement said they appreciated "the many successes Gary has brought Asheville," but that firing him was "in the city's and his best interests."

I asked for a written notice detailing why Jackson was fired. That's something state law says is a public record if a "disciplinary action" against a city employee amounts to a dismissal.

But Mayor Esther Manheimer on Wednesday said Jackson's termination wasn't a disciplinary action because the city manager works "at the pleasure" of the council, unlike other city employees who have more protections.

That leaves us to assume the city manager paid the price for the beating and the way it was handled. But it also leaves us not knowing if there were other reasons.

Looking at the decision on a continuum, running from the most cynical reasons for firing Jackson to the most high-minded, might look like this:

On the purely political end, people were furious and calling for someone's head. Not everyone wanted Hooper to go. Those wanting her removal included community members, Mullen and Asheville Black Lives Matter representative Sharon Smith.

But those wanting her to stay included other community members and Asheville-Buncombe NAACP President Carmen Ramos-Kennedy.

Jackson, meanwhile, had few defenders during a March 13 council meeting where several members of the public stated he should be fired.

If public appeasement was the goal, Jackson may have been the easiest to get rid of, especially considering he had already announced his retirement, effective Dec. 31. Also, dismissing him didn't mean he would face a devastating financial cost. His contract stipulated that if he wasn't given six months' notice and hadn't done anything criminal he was to get half a year's benefits and salary, a dollar amount of nearly $98,000.

On the higher end of the council's decision possibilities, it may be that Smith and other council members truly felt Hooper has been an effective change agent, despite this now glaring exception.

Just prior to our publication of the story on the beating and video, the Asheville Police Department released annual figures showing a 61 percent reduction in uses of force.

In conversations I had with some council members shortly after the video release, there was a sense of disbelief and outrage. That seemed to soften somewhat after a March 5 special closed session, during which an explanation from Hooper might have left them more satisfied.

Hooper agreed it was a mistake to not start the criminal investigation sooner and promised a new policy going forward. There was also council criticism of the structure set up under Jackson, in which the police chief reported to an assistant city manager and not directly to him. That too would be changed, Jackson announced.

That could mean council members believe Hooper followed city policies and procedures, but that those procedures were flawed — and the biggest flaws were the responsibility of Jackson.

It could also mean that there's more to why Jackson was fired. And we just don't know yet.

Joel Burgess covers Asheville city government. Reach him at jburgess@citizentimes.com.