Southport Residents Lay Into Mayor Over Decision To Fire Police Chief

Source: WISH-TV / other

SOUTHPORT, Ind. — The fallout continues to be fierce against the mayor of Southport after his decision to fire the city’s police chief.

Mayor Jim Cooney faced the backlash of his decision head-on in a meeting of the city’s Board of Public Works and Safety on Wednesday. Hundreds of angry Southport residents backed the tiny room in which the public meeting was held.

During public comment, residents did not pull any punches in telling the mayor directly how irate they were over his decision to fire Southport police chief Tom Vaughn.

“You ungrateful son of a gun,” one resident said.

“You should be outraged Every person here should be calling for his resignation. We don’t want you. We want you gone,” another said to the mayor.

As public comment was still progressing, Mayor Cooney abruptly called for the meeting to be adjourned and left the room quickly without answering any questions. Tom Vaughn, who also spoke at the meeting, stuck around afterward and continued to call on the mayor to sit down with him and hash out their differences.

“It’s hard for someone to say ‘I’m going to rescind it’ or ‘I was wrong’ or whatever it is,” Vaughn empathized. “Hopefully, (Cooney) is listening to his constituents, listening to the people and what they want. He’ll have a day or two to think about it.”

The crux of the issues between Cooney and Vaughn has to do with Cooney requesting personnel records about the Southport Police Department’s reserve officers. Vaughn denied that request saying that the personnel records he was requesting were confidential.

Soon after that, Cooney dictated a letter to Vaughn informing him that he was being fired, saying that Vaughn “was not following orders.”

A city attorney attested at the Public Works meeting that state law does allow Cooney to fire the city’s police chief. Since firing Vaughn, Cooney has demoted him to an unpaid position within the police department.

While the situation unfolds, Vaughn is worried that if it carries on much further some police officers may start walking out of the department in protest of Cooney’s decision.

“Maybe we can sit down and work out the differences and see where we go from there,” Vaughn said. “We are still doing what we do. They are going to go out. They are going to serve and protect because that’s their passion.”

The topic will be brought up again tonight as the Southport City Council will have its say over how the situation went down in a special meeting.

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