FLINT, MI -- Colorful and combative to the core, Flint City Councilman Eric Mays has a history of unorthodox behavior throughout his years in local politics.

The third-term city councilman has been escorted by police out of public meetings in handcuffs on multiple occasions. He’s pawned city laptops and verbally assaulted a reporter in City Council chambers. He has submitted multiple recall petitions against fellow council members and helped in recall campaigns against former mayors.

He even ran for mayor himself in 2015, when he was the only candidate who filed on time.

Recently, he repeatedly used the Nazi salute while calling the council chair Hitler. In fall of 2019, he was on the receiving end of a threat by a city attorney who said he would “crack him across the head.”

Outside of council chambers, Eric Mays was sentenced to jail in 2016 for impaired driving after he was found next to a disabled car, facing the wrong way on the expressway in 2013.

Most recently, he and the Flint’s deputy chief of staff were involved in a bar fight.

Mays is one of Flint’s most outspoken and best-known public officials.

In a call on Friday, Feb. 7 with MLive-The Flint Journal, Mays said the media only focuses on the negative and does not write about his accomplishments

“You’re talking about 50 days of my life and I’m 62 years old and that’s 365 days for 62 years,” Mays said.

He said he’s been wrongfully kicked out of meetings and generally treated unfairly.

“Yeah a lot of this stuff is true and a lot of it ain’t," Mays said.

Out in the community, Mays said he is the council member people know will always pick up his phone. He said he places priority on his 1st Ward constituents but will come to aid any Flint residents.

On the call with The Journal, Mays highlighted some of his accomplishments over the years:

giving houses back to people all across the city before they go to the Land Bank

voting to switch Flint’s water source back to Detroit.

helping to get Flint out of a deficit and into a $24 million fund balance and getting the emergency managers out

being part of the effort to get President Barack Obama to declare the water crisis an emergency and helping to go subsequent federal funding

With that said, here’s a look back on some of Mays’ weirdest moments over the years:

Supporters gather to grab a bite with Flint City Councilman Eric Mays, who steps out for his second cigarette, at Starlite Diner & Coney Island in Burton after he was released from Genesee County Jail in 2016. (Jake May | MLive.com)The Flint Journal

Mays was arrested after being found facing the wrong way on I-475

Mays served 22 days in January 2016 days after a trial in which prosecutors claimed he crashed his vehicle in 2013 near Leith Street and Industrial Avenue in Flint before driving it nearly three miles and ending up facing the wrong way on Interstate 475.

He was arrested Nov. 30, 2013, on allegations of drunken driving and possession of marijuana. Police said the vehicle involved had been traveling north in the southbound lanes of I-475 on four flat tires.

He represented himself in two trials connected to the incident and had suggested he was the victim of “political, trumped-up charges” in the case. Mays was convicted of impaired driving in the first jury trial, a verdict that a judge later overturned. He was found guilty of impaired driving in a second trial.

When Mays first went to trial, in 2014, he pulled out his dentures and argued the dentures could have affected his breathalyzer test.

“If the teeth fit, you must acquit,” Mays said in a 2014 Flint Journal story.

After being sentenced to 72 days in jail and ordered to pay the city $10,800 in restitution in the morning, Flint City Councilman Eric Mays returned to court for an appeal bond request before Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Aug. 15, 2014 in Flint. (Jake May | MLive.com)Jake May | MLive.com

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Flint Councilman Eric Mays removes dentures to prove point during trial

Flint Councilman Eric Mays sentenced to jail for impaired driving

Mays avoids jail after pawning city laptops

Mays was sentenced in 2017 to pay $300 and put in a week’s worth of service on the sheriff’s work detail for pawning his city-issued laptop nine times over the course of two years.

In court, police said Mays pawned the city-issued laptop to Music Man Pawn Shop - located across the street from Flint City Hall - for a $100 loan nine times, beginning on Jan. 15, 2015.

Occasionally, he would pick up the computer from the shop only to pawn it back to Music Man the next day, police said.

Mays pleaded no contest in August to a single misdemeanor charge of willful neglect by a public official and faced a maximum sentence of a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such during sentencing.

However, as part of a plea agreement between Mays’ attorney, Frank J. Manley, and the Genesee County Prosecutor’s Office, Mays’ sentencing was delayed until after that year’s election. The First Ward Councilman was re-elected to his seat with nearly 70 percent of the ward’s vote.

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Flint councilman avoids jail for pawning city laptop for loans

Mays verbally assaults member of the press

In a letter dated April 29, 4th Ward Councilwoman Kate Fields told MSP Colonel Joseph Gasper that 1st Ward Councilman Eric Mays “verbally attacked a member of the Press." She requested a police presence at future council meetings based on the incident.

Fields was referring to an outburst directed at MLive-The Flint Journal reporter Zahra Ahmad, who covers City Council. In a cell phone video that went viral on social media, Mays is seen calling Ahmad a “nasty woman” and a “foreigner.” Ahmad was born in Iraq and is a U.S. citizen.

Read more here:

Flint councilwoman requests state police presence at meetings following outburst

Flint Journal’s editorial: Restore decorum at Flint City Council with a return of police presence

Attorney threatens to ‘crack’ Mays across the head

An attorney told Mays he wanted to “crack him across the head" during an altercation that erupted at a council committee meeting Wednesday, Sept. 4.

The incident happened at a meeting where a high-ranking member of Mayor Karen Weaver’s staff, Aonie Gilcreast, was being questioned about lead pipe restoration contracts and an alleged boycott by department chiefs in July.

Gilcreast was compelled to go before council for questioning after receiving a subpoena. Council also voted to subpoena Weaver for questioning.

Scott and Mays, Ward 1, began arguing in the middle of Gilcreast’s questioning because Scott didn’t appreciate how Mays was asking questions.

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Attorney threatens to ‘crack’ Flint Councilman Eric Mays across the head

Mays compares Flint council president to Hitler, performs Nazi salute at meeting

Mays met criticism after performing a Nazi salute and comparing the council president to Adolf Hitler at a general meeting on Monday, Jan. 13.

He sat up in his chair and responded to Council President Monica Galloway with a Nazi salute before comparing her to Hitler over a procedural issue.

“You don’t have to sound like Hitler,” Mays said at the meeting.

He later addressed the criticism, stating at a Jan 23 town hall: “I researched what apology means, and I said not (that) word. I say I regret if I offended anybody, but that was not my intent,” Mays said. “The salute came because had I said another word ... I would have been arrested illegally again and wasn’t nobody gonna rally."

Mays said he didn’t say anything about Jewish people.

“I’m sensitive to the Holocaust,” he added.

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Flint councilman criticized for using Nazi salute at meeting

Flint Councilman Eric Mays addresses criticism about Nazi salute

Flint City Councilman Eric Mays was removed as the Finance Comittee Chairman, and removed by police before the decision was finalized on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019 at Flint City Hall in downtown Flint. (Jake May | MLive.com)Jake May | MLive.com

Mays gets into a bar fight with Flint’s deputy chief of staff

Mays claimed he was attacked Wednesday evening, Feb. 5, at a local bar by a member of Mayor Sheldon Neeley’s staff.

But the administration is alleging Mays is the one who flung insults at DuVarl Murdock, the city’s deputy chief of staff, leading to a brawl between the pair.

After being asked to leave Wednesday night’s city council meeting due to what a statement from the administration calls “disorderly conduct,” Mays told MLive-The Flint Journal he went with a group of friends to Rube’s Bar & Grill on North Chevrolet Avenue, where the fight occurred.

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Councilman Eric Mays and Flint’s deputy chief of staff involved in bar fight