TOWNS SHUT DOWN POLICE AFTER METH ARRESTS

GRUETLI-LAAGER, Tenn. - Four days after police arrested a new alderman
on drug charges, the city board voted to shut down the police
department and put the longtime chief and his three officers out of
work.

Four days later, city officials in neighboring Palmer also disbanded
their two-officer police department, which assisted in arresting the
Gruetli-Laager alderman.

During the public votes, the Gruetli-Laager aldermen mentioned
complaints of police harassment while Palmer officials talked about
saving money.

The fired police in these small towns say they know the real reason
they are out of work: They went after illegal methamphetamine labs
rife in their Cumberland Plateau county.

Gruetli-Laager Mayor Donna Rollins, who took office Aug. 6, and the
other three aldermen who voted to abolish the police department
refused to discuss the reason behind their Aug. 19 votes. Although
Palmer Mayor Paul Campbell disagreed with the decision by his
aldermen, he said it was financial.

Now some of the 1,800 residents in Gruetli-Laager are not only
downright nervous about being dependent for nighttime protection on
two county deputies patrolling 630 miles of winding, hilly roads. They
also wonder what is happening at City Hall.

Beverly Sanders, whose R&B Video rentals is next-door to City Hall,
said she and others want to know how the town will provide law
enforcement.

"We felt really good being up here by the police station, but now
there are no police," she said. "It's a concern for sure."

Swiss immigrants settled Gruetli-Laager (pronounced GROOT'-lee
LAH'-guhr) in 1869, but from the City Hall parking lot, the name is
the only clue to the poor farming community's beginnings. Both
Gruetli-Laager and Palmer are in Grundy County, a mountainous region
about 30 miles northwest of Chattanooga notorious in decades past for
moonshine stills and automobile chop shops.

Alderman Wayne Grimes, the lone vote against the shutdown, said
Gruetli-Laager's police chief of 21 years and the three other officers
stepped on the wrong toes when they busted 67 methamphetamine labs in
the first seven months of this year.

"I just feel like maybe they were doing their job too good," said
Grimes, a contractor who is midway through his second term as an alderman.

Grimes said police crackdowns on beer sales to minors angered some
market owners and relatives and friends of those arrested.

"To me, it was a political deal," Grimes said. "They thought that
hopefully if they got rid of the police department, they would drop
the charges."

Rollins previously served as mayor and has "old grudges" with former
police chief Ferrell Hicks, he said.

Alderman Jim Layne, 37, who was freed on a $1,000 bond following his
Aug. 12 arrest on a charge of buying a controlled substance without a
prescription, declined to comment on why he voted to shut down the
department.

The aldermen who joined in that vote, Dwight Hargis and newly elected
Connie Cannon, also wouldn't comment.

Former chief Hicks said his department not only policed Gruetli-Laager
but also responded to calls from residents outside the city limits. He
stands behind the department's work and its drug cases.

Hicks, 62, said the new mayor "wanted the key to the evidence room and
wanted to tell you who to go after. I don't go along with that."

Methamphetamine, an addictive stimulant manufactured from easily
obtained chemicals, is the "biggest problem this county has got, and
it will increase now," he said. Hicks declined further comment.

Gruetli-Laager's former mayor, Wanda Hart, said she and the chief
sometimes disagreed during her just-ended term. But meth manufacture
and addiction are problems for the region, she said.

"I don't know if you can give that too much attention," said Hart, a
nurse.

She sometimes heard from residents who thought the police didn't do
enough, and she didn't think the officers were overzealous. But she
also recalled citizen complaints about harassment, although nobody
officially complained.

"It was hard to say whether it was going on or not," said Hart, who
didn't seek re-election.

Palmer's former police chief, Barry Parker, said he was hired in June
after the town of about 900 residents went 18 months without a police
department. He said no money problem was mentioned before he was told
the department was out of business.

Parker also thinks his involvement in drug enforcement may have
contributed to the decision. He said meth labs in the community have
supplied dealers and users throughout Tennessee for years.