Update 12:31 PM on 10/14/16: The hearing for Chief Brock has been postponed, and has not yet been rescheduled, according to Mayor Rachel White.
The longtime police chief Bel-Ridge, of a town of about 2,700 people in St. Louis County, is facing a termination hearing Saturday, following accusations of mismanagement.
Chief Gordon Brock has worked for the Bel-Ridge Police Department since the early 1990s, and was promoted to chief in 2000.
In 2014, St. Louis Public Radio reported on an audit of the department, which had been rediscovered in a closet by Alderman Rachel White, who is now the village’s mayor. Among its findings:
- Officers were incurring suspiciously high charges for gasoline, suggesting officers bought gas for personal use on village accounts.
- Eleven credit cards owned by the city were kept in an open safe.
- Chief Brock deleted an arrest record from a regional background check database for a fellow police chief’s grandson in 2007. A law enforcement committee barred him from the program for five years.
- The evidence room was unsecured.
- An internal investigation of a Bel-Ridge sergeant accused of selling narcotics did not appear to follow protocol.
According to Missouri law, a police chief must receive a hearing before a government body, and can only be removed by a two-thirds vote.
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The hearing is scheduled for Saturday at Bel-Ridge City Hall, but an alderman said it would not be open to the public.
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