On Feb. 11 Mike Rose, who worked for the Maury County Sheriff's Department spent his first day as interim Police Chief in Coopertown. Never, in his 18 years of experience as a law officer, had he been faced with such lies and deceit as he did when he first walked through the doors of Coopertown City Hall. He knew where all the criminals, whom he had dealt with his life time, were coming from. It was the smiling faces, the hearty handshake and the pat on the back of Coopertown City Hall who would put him on a ladder and kick it right out from under him that would make him consider leaving law enforcement altogether.

Mayor Crosby hired Mike Rose, circumventing the Personnel Committee, as he had done with all previous police chiefs who were hired during his tenure as mayor except Chief Barrera who was hired while the mayor was suspended from office.

The mayor had high praise for Mike Rose as evidenced by his statements in The Tennessean. It’s a “new day” for Coopertown said Mayor Danny Crosby. The interim chief is promising as Crosby sees it. He said that Rose has knowledge in working with personnel, planning and other decisions concerning employees. Crosby said. “You want someone who is very seasoned, from outside of the police department, someone with management skills, people skills, and who knows the importance of background searches. “He fell into the groove here,” Crosby said, adding that officers are currently “working hand-in-hand” with him. “[He] has done a lot that has never been done since I’ve been mayor of this city,” Crosby said.

The mayor was right, It's a "new day" for Coopertown! Or was it?

And now....for the rest of the story:

The day after seeing the story about the firing of Bill Rush on Fox News, Rose submitted a letter of interest to Crosby. While serving in Maury County, Rose was in charge of many other officers as a sergeant. This was Mike Rose's dream job, to be Chief of Police. “I moved 71 miles and turned down two jobs to take this,” Rose said.

The first thing on Mike's agenda was to get the department Post Certified. Mike Rose did this with-in three days. The State had all intentions of closing down the police department as they were not in compliance.

This was the problem Danny Crosby faced. His beloved police department was going to be shut down by the state. And what should fall right into his lap? A certified P.O.S.T. instructor? Yes! It was a "new day" in Coopertown.

Mike Rose was sitting at his desk at city hall, nine days after being hired, basking in the glory of just having read the mayor's press release praising him of a job well done. He had recently POST certified the department, hired new certified officers and was ready to tackle other goals he had set for himself in his dream job of Coopertown Police Chief. Yes it was a "new day" in Coopertown!

The city clerk had just brought in the daily mail when Mike noticed something was amiss in his office. Documents in the filing cabinet had the appearance of disarray. Items in his desk were not in their usual position. Upon further investigation, he found papers were missing from the desk drawers. Not knowing what to make of an obvious intruder in his office, Mike decided to solicit the help of Gordon Rhodes, Road Superintendent, to change the locks and install a deadbolt.

Changing the locks seem to do the trick. His office appeared to be secured, everything back to normal. Mike was ready again to tackle his goals when he noticed, over the course of the next several days, he was getting the cold shoulder from certain people at city hall and especially from one of his subordinate sergeants. There was something going on in here, he could just feel it in the air. His defensive instincts began to kick in, brought on by his 18 plus years of a veteran police officer. He has had this feeling before while being on a stakeout or pulling over a car for a simple traffic stop. But, he thought to himself, it was a feeling closer to the feeling he got every time he walked through the Maury County Jail housing the criminals he himself had helped capture.

That "new day" in Coopertown is rapidly aging!

On the thirty third day of Mike Rose's tenure as interim police chief, Mayor Danny Crosby walked into the police chief's office, along with Officer Cole and asked for Mike's resignation.

Stunned, Mike Rose ask why? Crosby told him, due to the fact that I did not follow the procedures of the Personnel Committee during the hiring process, it would be best for him to resign. Mike showed some reluctance and hesitation in agreeing to submitting his resignation so Danny Crosby kicked it up a notch. There is one other issue I feel obligated I should bring to your attention Danny told the chief. Peggy Ruth and Susan Slawson are going to bring to the attention of the public. the accident which happened during the high speed chase you were involved in resulting in the death of that college student.

Stunned, Mike's mind raced with the events of the past month. Acquiring his dream job, turning the police department around, the sabotage of his office and the cold atmosphere at city hall. Now this! It was too much to bear. Mike had since tried to put the accident behind him the best he could but it had always haunted him. Now it was going to be resurrected in a public forum? This was too much to bear. Showing emotion, he agreed to the resignation. Danny Crosby said he would help with the resignation and with a tear in his eye told Mike he felt like resigning himself. And true to his word, Danny had Mike's resignation typed up for Mike to sign. Mike packed his belongings and left Coopertown forever.

There was something missing from the meeting of Danny Crosby, Officer Cole and Mike Rose. A tape recorder! Crosby NEVER EVER has a meeting without recording every word, every sentence, every belch, cough, burp and even a f*rt cannot escape his audio scrapbook of every meeting he attends.

The RCTimes ran the resignation of Mike Rose on March 19, citing personal reasons. There was little chatter about the resignation probably due to the citizens getting use to Coopertown police chief's resigning or being fired. Coopertown is at number seven right now. Yes, all was calm in Coopertown until....

The story of the resignation stayed on the front page of the Tennessean until recently. There were several comments to the story at first and then the comments stopped. While reading the paper online I noticed another person had commented on the story, so being the inquiring mind that I am I clicked on the story, scrolled down to the comments:

guesswho wrote:

Maybe the good people of Coopertown should take a good look at the alderman. Seems when a police chief resigns it always comes back to Alderman Ruth and one specific police officer.
3/31/2008 3:16:47 PM


Guesswho would become the "Deep throat of Coopertowngate"


To be continued...

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The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. Adlai E. Stevenson American Lawyer, Politician.

I recall that line from Batman when I was a young lad.


Now correct me if I am wrong, but would'nt it make sense that an innocent man would resubmit his resume to the city after taking, and before receiving the results of, a urinalysis? I for sure would think a guilty man would not want that tidbit following him to his next position. Nor would he be wishing to look vulnerable to accusation later over such an important matter. If any of us where to take a drug test and resubmit for a Police Chief position that we felt like we should be doing, we would damn sure be thinking we were clean or why even bother? Noone ruins their reputation needlessly without any assistance from facilitators. Common sense God gave man says that does not happen. They do have those "Darwin Award winnerss" but I sense Rose is not one of those. So following that logic, I have reason to believe that Officer Rose KNEW his situation better than any of us possibly could. Further any officer of the law who has been in the proffession for so many years has surely been treated like the others with drug tests and what not. Maury county may be far away but I am sure they follow the same POST requirements as Coopertown. People just do not do vounteer to smear their own names like that and if it did happen, woe to the person who lets that happen.



Plus, from what I have reason to believe, if I was the Chief on the day my city was certified I would not care which of my people helped me get the details finalized. Why you ask? Because WHILE acting as the duly appointed PC there was a................, ta da!, certification propogated by his ability to qualify under the minimum provisions that were not satisfied until his arrival, apparently. I hope Officer Cole is paying attention as I know from talking with him, he says he is the true responsible party and he most assuredly feels he can prove he helped make it happen. However, when the President looks down at a General or Admiral over a mission accomplished he does not go stand up and declare "Oh that Lt. Col did the work for that dumb a.. Gen.". Nope and never, he always stands up and announces "GOOD JOB General" (probably gives them raises or some kind of reward like a medal, huh)! I know, I have seen it nationally televised on a regular basis since the war started in Viet Nam and witnessed it at the "grunt" level as many else around here have when the Cpt or even a butter bar did the grunt work for the Col. While it might not make sense to the grunts in the army, in the daily life we live or police work, it is why they are hire them as a POLICE CHIEF or give them the titles that go with leadership of men in the armed service! Just Get R Done, that makes sense to me! (General Washington surely had help if you will)

For Officer Coles participation it should be noted:
Thanks to those WHO DID participate in this important function! I am sure Officer Cole learned a good deal also in his appreciated assistance. He can certainly rack that up as experience (and X-Chief Rose can boast he "got r done" while Chief_!

Now why did he and the Mayor think he failed even after Rose resubmitted his application and KNEW they would get to look at the reults to meet the minimum requirments?

"Riddle me that batman"

Simple Billy, pure and simple. It's called "common sense". If Officer Cole was the Savior of POST certifying Danny's Beloved Police Department, then how did it get to the point of non compliance in the first place? Common sense, the same common sense one might use when soliciting monies from willing government entities who would have shared in the cost of the interstate lighting project even if Danny does have light pole envy and wanted the longer implan...I mean the taller lights at a higher cost. He would have, at least, had $45,000 from each entity to help foot the bill. Common sense, Danny Crosby tells the Chief that Peggy Ruth is going to expose his past? I don't know about you but I don't think Peggy Ruth or Susan Slawson is high enough on his guest list for his next cookout to even discuss such an allegation. Common sense Billy, a virtue that, along with an education, is lacking from a Georgia transplant. Yes, they put the cart before horse when they started leaking rumors of failed drug test. Danny Crosby needs to go ahead and make The Sarge a police chief and then he can fire him like the others.

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The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. Adlai E. Stevenson American Lawyer, Politician.

Gordon, you want to explain why Mayor Crosby told Chief Rose that Peggy Ruth was going to make public the incident concerning the accident which happened in Chief's Roses's pass. This was a blatant lie, defamation of character and caused damage to her creditability.

_________________
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. Adlai E. Stevenson American Lawyer, Politician.