Mayors in Lonoke and Austin recently fired their police chiefs, and the police chief of England will retire Saturday, marking the third chief in the past two months to leave his position in Lonoke County towns.
Patrick Mulligan was fired Dec. 23 after serving as Lonoke's police chief for 11 months.
Neither Mayor Wayne McGee nor City Attorney Ginger Stuart returned telephone messages Wednesday to answer question about Mulligan's firing.
"You'll have to talk about that with Mayor McGee," Lonoke Alderman Koy Butler said when asked the details of Mulligan's termination. He would not comment further.
McGee named Assistant Police Chief Randy Mauk as the interim chief shortly after Mulligan's firing.
"[McGee] came in and said, 'You're in charge,'" Mauk said Tuesday. "I don't know why he was let go. It's still unknown to me."
When asked if Mulligan had problems with McGee in the past, Mauk said he didn't know.
"He was the chief," Mauk said. "I'm not going to evaluate him. I want to move forward and put this behind us."
In Austin, some 20 miles north of Lonoke, Mayor Bernadette "Bernie" Chamberlain fired Police Chief Jim Kulesa in November. Kulesa had been the chief for two years.
Chamberlain did not return telephone messages Wednesday.
Chamberlain had told news outlets earlier that Kulesa's termination was not done to allow the Lonoke County sheriff's office to take over law enforcement in the town of 2,785. She said then that she would not dissolve Austin's Police Department.
City Hall manager Randy McKenzie said Wednesday that the mayor has yet to name a new police chief.
"We're just treading water now," he said. "But we've not lost any personnel for any shifts."
England Police Chief Nathan Cook will retire effective Jan. 1, said city personnel director Crystal Romine.
She said Cook, who has been the chief in the town of 2,792 for four years, is leaving the law enforcement profession.
Mayor Danny Maynard named Danna Sue Powell, the former deputy chief at the Pine Bluff Police Department, to succeed Cook. Powell, who applied for the Pine Bluff police chief position in 2003, had been with the department since 1988 and has served as deputy chief since 2005.
State Desk on 12/29/2016