Greeneville Asst. Police Chief Terminated

The city of Greeneville has termintaed their assistant Chief of Police. That announcement was made Tuesday afternoon by city administrator Todd Smith. Michael Crum was terminated Monday afternoon after the city used Tennessee’s Municipal Technical Advisorty Service to conduct a department wide review. That review found that employees at the Greeneville Police Department were not satisfied with the work environment due to alleged gender-based discrimination against women, illegal practices, favoritism, and other issues. 55 Greenville police department employees were interviewed during this review and that constitutes the bulk of the Greeneville police department staff. One of the main complaints from employees was Michael Crum’s attitude towards women in the department…such as female department employees being barred from attending police conferences and preventing female officers from attending the Women in Law Enforcement training…saying women don’t belong in law enforcement. According to several employees Crum asked a detective to reopen the background investigation on a female applicant whose scores placed her high on the hiring list specifically to “find something that would disqualify her.”

The survey from the MTAS found that the Chief and Assistant Chief once ordered a patrolman to dismiss 17 parking tickets,” and that officers had been ordered “not to write parking tickets in certain sections of town.” The survey found the police department’s morale on a scale of 1-10 was a 4…some even giving morale a 1 or 2. The Greeneville City Administrator did not make any comment on the status of police chief Tim Ward.