Kimberling City’s ENTIRE police force quits, mayor says 'we'll be fine'
KIMBERLING CITY, MISSOURI: In a small town in Missouri, with an estimated population of fewer than 2,500 people, three officers, a sergeant, and the police chief have turned in their resignations. While the resignations will take effect over the next few weeks, the problem is that these five people are the entirety of Kimberling City’s police department.
The first resignation came for the Chief of Police Craig Alexander, on August 23. His resignation was followed by the resignations of the other four police officers: Officer Shaun McCafferty on September 1, Officer Rutger House on September 2, Sergeant Aaron Hoeft on September 7, and Officer Caleb McCarty on September 8.
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A Facebook post by former mayor and alderman Jason Hulliung on September 7 said, “Every Single Kimberling City Police Officer has resigned.” The following day, he wrote on Facebook, “I have just sat down and read the resignation letters from the entire Kimberling Police Department and court clerk. Knowing this amazing group of people personally, I can feel in their words the frustration they faced to meet the needs of this community.”
“It seems there were many hurdles that could have been overcome by the city administration if they just focused on what is important to the citizens of this city,” Hulliung wrote on Facebook. “They needed the pay, the staff, the tools, and most importantly the support of the administration to let them do their job as we all know that have for many years. Two resignations I did not read are the ones for the city administrator and the mayor. Maybe these two should be next as this failure ultimately falls on them.”
According to a report by KY3, a Springfield-based news network, while the city remains with zero policemen, the Stone County Sheriff’s Office will handle calls. “Until then we will be answering all the calls in Kimberling City, we can’t enforce city ordinances, but any other calls we will be handling at this time,” Sheriff Doug Rader said, adding that just about every law enforcement agency is short-staffed right now.
“It will be a struggle to fill the police department back up with qualified officers, but hopefully they can start working on that soon and get that accomplished,” said Sheriff Rader.
As per the report, the resignations have cited reasons like not having qualified officers, the current pay rate, no police clerk to assist in the administration of the department, and new opportunities to better themselves. Chief Craig Alexander said he is accepting another position with Branson West Police Department along with Officer Shaun McCafferty.
“I didn’t know there were that many openings in Branson West because we didn’t see advertisements for police,” Kimberling City Mayor Bob Fritz said. The mayor added that the resignations were “unexpected and the short notice disappointing.” He said he will move forward, addressing pay and benefits to hire and keep police officers. “We’re looking for officers, we’re looking for a new police chief and I think we’ll be fine,” Mayor Fritz said.
The Kimberling City Police Department, as per Branson Tri-Lakes News, is normally staffed with 6 officers, including the chief and a detective. One of the staff retired in July. “We had a department of five (officers). We had one retire back in July and he hadn’t been replaced yet,” Fritz said. “The detective (Robert Smigiel) retired after 20 some odd years and he moved to Florida.”
“I talked to our sergeant Aaron Hoeft, I asked him if he would be interested in being interim police chief because Aaron has been here for 16 years. He said he would think about it, but then on September 7 Sergeant Hoeft turned in his letter of resignation,” said the mayor.
Fritz said that in his letter Hoeft said that “by having no qualified officers at this pay rate and no police clerk able to assist in the administration side in the department, he felt it wasn’t possible for him to do the job to the best of his ability.” He added, “I had numerous meetings with Chief Alexander, Shuan McCafferty, Aaron Hoeft, and Caleb McCarty. I did my best to visit with them but to no avail. People have to do what is best for them and have to look out for their livelihood.”
Hulliung, the former mayor, said problems in the PD preceded the resignation of the police department. “An entire department doesn’t leave for individual, independent reasons. You have to go back a little farther and understand not only did our police department resign; our court clerk resigned; a 17-year employee of Public Works resigned. All of them point to the same issue. It is an administration issue. Clearly, this is not a problem with our police department because the resignations go back farther,” Hulliung said.
“We have lost massive amounts of long-term experience in the city government in a short amount of time,” he added. “It is definitely an administrative problem. If they can’t see that then they don’t need to be in that position.”