Ellis can use this as a templete for his termination letter to Bolton

When Chief Terrell Bolton was fired from the Dallas Texas Police Department in 2003, then City Manager Ted Benevides authored a letter to Bolton’s attorney explaining why Bolton was fired. This is an excerpt from that letter contrasting Bolton’s actions as Chief of Police of DeKalb County. If he was fired from Dallas for these reasons, then he should be fired from DeKalb as well.

Chief Bolton began contrasting his style and Chief (Burgess/Moody) Click's style. I did not think this was an appropriate way to start an administration.

Chief Bolton reassigned some officers to the streets. The reassignment resulted in much criticism from some constituent groups. Management stood behind the Chief. Eventually, most of the officers ended up back in their original desk jobs.

Chief Bolton made some key executive personnel assignments to refocus the direction of the department. The department came under much attack externally and internally. (dekalbofficers.com)

The Chief was criticized for his delayed deployment of the new Camaros (high speed vehicles). Many believed he was "sitting on" the cars and would not let them be deployed. He simply wanted to roll them out according to his own time frame. (We have a car shortage so severe, officers stand around up to 2 hours waiting on a car, yet over 50 ICP officers have take home cars and are never called out to a scene).

Chief Bolton was criticized for a trip to Huntsville (similar to a trip he took recently for his re-certification) where he expended additional city monies to have special transportation and hotel accommodation in lieu of staying in the dorms at Sam Houston State University with the other conference attendees. At the time, management supported his decisions. (Houston training trip, 7 weeks paid vacation in 2006, how many county paid trips to Dallas to visit his wife and children and his house? Remember, Bolton still has no ties to DeKalb County, he rents)

Certain civilian executives were assigned unmarked police vehicles. Due to budgetary constraints, the Chief was instructed to take those vehicles away. He resisted this instruction but did eventually comply (Margarita Williams, Command Staff Aides, etc. have take home cars).

The Chief was also asked to give up his personal driver. The Chief did not comply with the management's instructions and continued to make use of a personal driver until the day of his termination. (Bolton has an entourage of drivers and personal protection).

Executive positions had been cut citywide, and Chief Bolton was asked to cut two civilian executive positions from his 2002-2003 budget. The Chief was informed of the rationale to eliminate executives in the same percentage lower rank and file had been eliminated. Chief Bolton disagreed and in a Council Budget meeting, told the Council he could absorb that cost. This was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Management made no public comment during the Council briefing. (Demotes 2 Majors with years of experience and dedication to the citizens of DeKalb County so he could hire 2 Atlanta Police Lieutenants with no ties to DeKalb County or loyalty to its citizens and promotes them to Major).

Management recently received comments from some police department personnel regarding their concerns over the Chief's management style and how things were not working within the department.

The Chief's handling of Dallas' crime ranking was defensive. His attempts to explain the ranking and justify crime levels by explaining that in years past the numbers had been higher offered little in the way of solution to the problem. (We have yet to hear from the Chief about our all time murder rate).

The accumulation of issues and incidents are distracting from the Police Department's work of ensuring the public safety. Public safety is the primary function of government, and I have lost confidence in the Chief's ability to move the department forward in successfully pursuing this goal. We must reduce crime, lower our number one ranking and provide the safe streets and neighborhoods that our citizens expect and deserve. I feel that new leadership for the department is needed.