Elections Have Consequences
40 year Law Enforcement Veteran Fired over Vague Comments
Forty year veteran policeman Ed Grimes was fired for vague comments made while on a cell phone three days after the Oklahoma County Sheriff election. An open mike in his patrol car picked up his half of a conversation, comments that Canadian County Sheriff Chris West claimed were "sexist and derogatory" and aimed toward supervisory personnel.
Grimes had come in last in a special election on September 12th that replaced disgraced former Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel. The comments were recorded on the department radio system and Grimes can be heard mentioning the movie Dumb and Dumber but there is not really enough to put the comment in context. But the next comment was something about "Chris West ...and his, ah, tampons".
Obviously Grimes was having fun with someone but was it Sheriff Chris West or was it other supervisors in the Canadian County Sheriff Department? Or was he referring to Chris West using tampons? Few would be surprised if that was the case.
The audio really is pretty tame other than that but the letter that Sheriff Chris West wrote firing Grimes said the audio showed a lack of respect, hurt morale, and shined a negative light on the department.
West told Grimes in the letter that "this open lack of respect" shined a negative light on the Canadian County Sheriff's Office and hurt morale. This is from a sheriff that refused to investigate fellow Canadian County Sheriff Department employee Adam Flowers after the OSBI was pressured into bringing allegations of child porn distribution and sexual harassment to Chris West's attention. Chris West flat our refused to investigate despite the taped conversation from Adam Flowers' co worker discussing the allegations.
.
No doubt Ed Grimes rocked the boat by running for Oklahoma County Sheriff and Chris West was itching for a reason to fire the man.
