Jonesboro's police chief suspended

                               Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette/08/222014 - Jonesboro Police chief Mike Yates
Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette/08/222014 - Jonesboro Police chief Mike Yates

Correction: Phillip Crego is the city attorney in Jonesboro. Crego’s last name was misspelled.

Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin suspended the city's police chief for 30 days without pay Friday and ordered him to write a letter of apology to a former newspaper reporter he posted contentious comments about on his personal Facebook page.

Chief Michael Yates must also write an apology to The Jonesboro Sun and take a training course about online etiquette during his suspension, a news release issued by Perrin's office said.

Termination will be considered in the event of "future use of social media or any forms of personal communication to imply threats, actions, or consequences tied to your influence or authority as Chief of Police," Perrin wrote in a formal warning to Yates.

Assistant Police Chief Tim Eads will serve as acting chief during Yates' suspension, the news release said.

Perrin did not return calls to his office for further comment.

A call to Yates' cellphone Friday afternoon was not returned.

The chief's suspension is the result of a review by City Attorney Phillip Crago into the online comments Yates made about a former reporter for The Sun, Sunshine Crump.

Crump, who was a police and courts reporter for The Sun, resigned after she learned of the postings, saying the strained relationship made her feel unsafe at work. The postings were the latest in a string of tense incidents between her and Yates, Crump said.

The newspaper filed a complaint with Crago on Monday under guidance from the Little Rock law firm Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow.

A change in the Jonesboro Police Department's policy about when police reports and publicly available affidavits were released to reporters was also at issue, Crump said.

In a previous interview, Yates said revisions to the department's public information policies were not targeting Crump. Those procedures had been too loose, he said, and the revisions are a return to a formal procedure.

Though Crump said she appreciates that the mayor took action, Yates' suspension is not enough for her.

"It's a day late and a dollar short," she said. "This issue is bigger than I am, and I just happen to be caught in the middle."

In multiple Facebook comments obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Yates and other Jonesboro Police Department officers posted about Crump's character, her ability as a reporter and her stories.

Yates repeatedly referred to Crump's revoked law license and a previous arrest in his posts.

Crump and The Sun said those comments were false, defamatory and could damage The Sun's business.

In an interview, Crump said she had stopped practicing law in Texas due to financial constraints and quit paying for her law license dues, fees and continuing education.

Crump was arrested at an anti-war protest in 2003 before she attended law school, but the charges were dropped, she said.

Crego said Friday that his review addressed only comments made by Yates -- not any other officers -- because he was the only one mentioned in the complaint. Crago said he had worked to determine whether Yates had implicated the city and the Police Department in his comments or whether they were purely personal.

There was no dispute that he had posted the comments, Crago said. In some posts, Yates also included the details of cases that he said Crump had misreported.

In a Wednesday interview, Yates referred to his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech in writing the posts.

The Sun Publisher David Mosesso said he was left unsatisfied with the mayor's choice to suspend Yates.

"Any other business entity would have terminated that employee immediately," Mosesso said. "I know the mayor struggled with this decision, and he's doing what he thinks is best, but we just happen to disagree."

State Desk on 08/23/2014

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