RBS Responds to Chronicle’s Document Request Regarding Chief’s Termination
By Jessie Williams
The City of Red Boiling Springs recently responded to the Macon County Chronicle’s request for documents pertaining to former Chief of Police Terry Tuck’s termination during the city council’s regular July meeting.
Five documents were submitted to us for review and include the following information:
- A statement by a city employee stating that she had received text messages from Tuck about meeting outside of work after a city council meeting. The employee claims the text messages escalated to unwanted physical contact at the workplace.
- A letter from Mayor Tom Fultz stating the city employee reported the incidents to an RBS Officer and Mayor Fultz addressed Tuck about the incident. The letter states that Tuck responded that the office workers wear low cut blouses and when they bent over to tie their shoes, they were right in his face and “What was a man supposed to do?”
- A letter from Mayor Tom Fultz stating that Tuck called him on his cell phone and said he retrieved two months of text message replies from the city employee who filed the complaint against him. Fultz states in the letter that he asked if there was anything incriminating in its content and Tuck said “no.”
- A letter from Mayor Fultz stating that he was contacted by Tuck on July 10 and Tuck stated that he retracted his statement of the alleged complaint but admitted to the text messages between him and a city employee.
- The letter hand delivered to Tuck regarding his termination.
(All five documents are included in the printed copy of this week’s Macon County Chronicle.)
Tuck has requested a grievance hearing on the proposed action to terminate him. As of press time, the date of that hearing has not been set.
Tuck’s attorney Chad Jackson, of Morgan & Akins, PLLC, released the following statement regarding his client’s response to the complaint against him:
“Chief Tuck is proud of his long service to this community, and he is saddened and outraged to be dealing with the current situation. Chief Tuck disputes the contents of Mayor Fultz’s written memoranda, which were neither signed by Chief Tuck nor submitted to him for review. The complaint against Chief Tuck, which was completed under questionable circumstances some days after the alleged incident, is simply inaccurate. Thankfully, Councilman Butram was forthright enough to recently acknowledge publicly on his Facebook page what my investigation is showing — that certain RBS public officials and employees are spearheading a behind-the-scenes favor swap to advance their own agendas, to the detriment of Chief Tuck. The legality of those and other actions will be decided in a future proceeding, where the credibility and conduct of everyone involved will be in question.”
Jackson is referring to Butram’s claims on social media that he “traded” his vote to terminate Tuck for support from other council members stating:
“A couple of the yes votes were a compromise at the time (mine and one more)….I voted in trade for support and if the people who gave me their word on their support don’t have a backbone when the time comes, I will have no problem calling them out on it. I gave my part, and I expect to gain what I was told.”
In response to a comment about his public admission, Butram stated the following on Facebook:
“….why does it concern you if I admitted to participating in politics in the manner we all know is the real way politics works?”
