In May of 2012 Council Woman Geneva Lawrence authored an email to some other members of City Council about the police department attempting to fill an officer vacancy. We believe the reason for her email was to discredit the applicant who was given a conditional offer of employment. That applicant was James Owens. We also believe the email was intended to degrade the Assistant Chief’s judgment. In her email Lawrence presented a link to the same information related to a law suit that was recently provided on Face Book by Joan Davidson. Was her intention was to shock council into believing that an officer who had been charge with 4th amendment violations was about to be hired by the Assistant Chief? It’s important that you know that the former Chief, Charles Reece, had not retired at that time and was still in charge of hiring. Lawrence even went so far as to state in her email that the vacancy should remain unfilled so the new chief could select the candidate to fill the position. Ask yourself these questions: How did Geneva know James Owens was given a conditional offer? Who within the Police Department was working with her to alert her to the fact that the ONLY opening was about to be filled? Why would she want the vacancy to go unfilled for many more months? Why would she attempt to degrade the Asst. Chief when it was the Chief’s decision to hire Owens? Why would Ms. Lawrence inject herself into the hiring process? It is not a common practice for council members to be involved with such matters and as far as we have found Ms. Lawrence had never done that before. We believe her intents were to ensure there was a vacancy for her son-in-law Allen Foltz (In May 2012 there was no way to predict that an opening would come available when another officer resigned in August as it did) and to make the Asst. Chief appear incompetent because she was vying for the Chief’s position against Grounsell. After Grounsell was appointed as Chief of police he immediately sought after the heads of the two people that Lawrence had discredited in the email mentioned earlier. Grounsell made it his immediate mission to fire two good officers. One of which had over 20 years of experience and both who had excellent career records. Grounsell set out to fire two good officers that he had absolutely no firsthand knowledge of, had never worked with and had no idea of their work ethic or ability. Whose agenda was he trying to carry out? Was he simply headhunting to satisfy Geneva Lawrence? How did he so quickly draw to the conclusion that these two officers needed to be fired? In his own admission, Grounsell was out of town attending the Police Academy for much of his short employment. These attacks against these employees started on Grounsell’s second day at work. Grounsell claimed in one of his recent posts that Owens should have never been hired. Why would he feel that way about a certified officer with many qualifications and a clear record? Grounsell stated that he wouldn’t hire someone who had been “CONVICTED” of moral turpitude or someone who didn’t have high ethical standards? He also said that Owens should have never been hired. Owens was never convicted of anything so, how did Grounsell come to the conclusion that Owens wasn’t an ethical person? Perhaps the link that was posted by Joan Davidson was done with intent to give explanation. However, if you read the information below you will clearly see that Owens was cleared of all alleged charges. (Here is the link to the entire document: docs.justia/cases/federal/district-courts/south-carolina/scdce/7:2009cv02858/170767/68 See below for the Court’s findings which are the last 2 pages on the linked document). Grounsell and his supporters provide half truths in hopes that you will not take the time to seek further information. He encourages everyone reading his posts to do the research but then provides only the parts of things he wants you to see hoping that you will blindly believe what is posted. Don’t let yourself be misled. Seek out the information and form your own opinions. Ask yourself questions when things don’t quite add up. Why would Geneva Lawrence interfere with employment processes? Why would Lawrence berate the Asst. Chief? Why would Grounsell seek out the same two employees who he had no personal knowledge of their abilities or work records? Why would Grounsell fight so hard hire Lawrence’s son-in-law (to be discussed in a separate future post)? Whose agenda was he carrying out and why would such a self proclaimed ‘ethical’ man do such a thing? We believe the question is not if Lawrence and Grounsell were working together. The question is how long before Grounsell was made Chief had their partnership begun.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:36:01 +0000
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