The police chief says he plans to resign following recent incident.
The Mount Sterling Police Department has been in the news twice recently. Once back in August when the department was going to be shut down due to lack of funding and again this week, when an officer tased a 9 year old boy for not wanting to go to school.
On Tuesday, March 6, the Mount Sterling Police Department received a phone call from a woman who was claiming her 9 year old son wouldn't get up for school. When police responded to the residence, the boy continued to refuse to go to school and refused to put his hands behind his back. That's when reports say the officer tased the two-hundred-pound juvenile, Clear Channel's Derek Myers reported.
Later in the week, Charlie Neff, Mayor of village, says he put Police Chief Mike McCoy on administrative leave after McCoy tried to cover up the incident by not reporting it to his superiors.
Village Council members met Monday evening to discuss the fate of the police department. Moments after the meeting commenced, council went into executive session.
When they appeared again before the public, McCoy requested to make a public statement. In his statement, he said he would be resigning as Police Chief in the future, but didn't know when.
"I haven't resigned, yet. I mean, that's my intention in the future" said McCoy. He went on to cite budget cuts as his reason, Myers reported.
Neff echoed those sentiments.
"I think there's two separate things there. You have the investigation on the tasing of kid; his resignation, I don't think has any connection".
Neff said that the entire department is "on leave" and that the Madison County Sheriff will take over law enforcement operations for the village.
That decision leaves one village resident feeling unease.
"The Sheriff's Department is a fine organization, however, they lack in their response time. You're waiting forty minutes to an hour-and-a-half; I feel a little unsafe." said Heather Rice of Mount Sterling.
