GRUETLI-LAAGER LEADERS SWEEP POLICE DEPARTMENT

The news media had been alerted to the possibility that Gruetli-Laager
police Chief Ferrell Hicks and possibly three other officers were candidates
for the employment line.

The new city board of mayor and aldermen moved a meeting scheduled for
Tuesday forward to Friday at 6 p.m. and speculation was rampant that
newly-elected Mayor Donna Rollins and Alderman Jim Layne and Connie Cannon
were prepared to make sweeping changes in the police department.

But no one was prepared for what happened by a 4 - 1 vote abolishment of the
police department with Alderman Wayne Grimes the only "no" vote.

Gruetli-Laager now has no police force and must look to Grundy County
Sheriff Robert Meeks and a department already spread thin for police
protection.

Gone are police officers said to have alternated a large segment of the
populace by what critics have characterized as a haughty attitude and
unorthodox police methods.

But also gone is a police force which had put 67 methamphetamine labs out of
commission in the first seven months of 2002.

A majority of the standing-room only gallery of about 50 people were unhappy
with the decision, among them several with bitter words over dismissal of
Hicks after some 20 years as a Gruetli-Laager police chief.

"How many here sleep with a gun under your pillow? Well, you're going to
need one now," one citizen said.

City attorney Trey Anderson, asked if the jobless officers could draw
unemployment, said he thought they could.

Pending drug and other cases won't be jeopardized since officers, James
Dycus and Kevin Keele, who had obtained several grants to assist in the war
of drugs, say they will appear in court to prosecute, although no longer
employed.