Crossville Police Chief Rod Shoap resigns--Politics appear to be to blame.

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Rod Shoap addressed the Crossville city council about upgrading the emergency radio system at a recent council work session.  He resigned June 30, 2016

In a move that surprised many, Crossville police chief Rod Shoap tendered his resignation Thursday afternoon. The highly respected chief had given a new face to the Crossville police department and brought a variety of new ideas that strongly affected the local crime rate in a positive way.

Thursday evening Mr. Shoap said “I was tired of waiting for them.” Shoap said that 2 months after he was hired as interim, city manager David Rutherford had decided he wanted to hire him as the full time chief and had even put him in the retirement program.

According to Shoap, since Rutherford was fired, he'd tried working with the interim city manager Steve Hill on the matter but he kept getting put off. Shoap said initially Steve Hill told him it would be a month. That turned into two months, then waiting for the recall to be decided, then it became two and a half months and he was told it would be after the election.

Shoap said his question was, “Why?”

“(Steve Hill) admitted to me that the only issue is with Kerley, and no one else,” said Shoap, referring to councilman Jesse Kerley. Shoap said that Hill told him “Kerley has a problem with a couple of things you've done.” Shoap explained that those two things were that he wouldn't arrest a couple people that Kerley wanted arrested. Shoap added, “I just can't deal with that.”

Shoap continued, “Then (Hill) told me that they were going to meet this weekend to discuss it. I told him that he couldn't do that, “You can't have a meeting with those council people to discuss this unless you do an open records meeting.”

“I've been in law enforcement for 35 year years and I have never once heard anyone say that we had too many cops.” In so many words, that is what councilman Kerley said at the last budget work session proposing instead to take the funds out of the budget for an additional detective for the police department and use the money to build sidewalks.

“We're no longer the most dangerous city in the state, but were not that far from it,” siad Shoap A detective would be targeting criminals, not just patrolling. Shoap explained that the evening after he resigned he had people he didn't even know writing him and telling him how frustrated they were over this situation.

Shoap continued that he had found out another thing that Steve Hill had done. Shoap said he had planned on attending the state wide police chief's meeting. He said that the vendor's all come and that the department had saved $50,000 to $70,000 by attending last year. He got an email from the group recently saying that he was registered but they hadn't gotten the check for the fee. Shoap looked into it and found out that the city manager had canceled the trip without even telling him.

“I'll miss the guys, I love working there, but I'm tired of (the politics),” said Shoap. He added that he especially liked working with the younger guys and training the next generation of law enforcement. “I've worked as hard as I can work and the department has worked as hard as they can work.

He said in the last 2 months while he was waiting he had been contacted by 5 departments looking to hire him but he didn't even apply for those jobs. He said two of them were Murfreesboro and Lebanon.

He said he didn't have any specific future plans and that he and his wife bought a house and would like to stay here.

Long time Crossville police officer Mark Rosser has been named interim police chief for the time being.