This morning, investigative reporter Catie Coyne had a great article on the front page of the Charleston Gazette-Mail about the McPherson case, and the firing of Hinton police chief, Derek Snavely.
I’ve been doing this for awhile. Usually after the news dies down, a fired police officer will quietly appear somewhere else – usually a small municipality or county somewhere. I’ve seen it happen again and again. When the reporter called me about the case, I shared my frustration with her.
The Hinton police chief — who is the target of a federal lawsuit filed in December alleging that he used excessive force on a Summers County man by beating him and hitting him three times with a stun gun without provocation — was terminated this week based on his “job performance,” according to Hinton City Councilman Larry Meadow….
John Bryan, a Union-based attorney representing Robert McPherson, a man who filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of West Virginia against Snavely and the city of Hinton alleging excessive force by Snavely, said he wasn’t surprised to hear about the former police chief’s troubles of three weeks ago. Bryan said he had heard several people voicing concern about Snavely for a while.
“This is kind of a problem West Virginia has — if someone leaves a position, even if they should [leave] for a good reason, it’s cheaper to hire them on somewhere else instead of hiring someone who doesn’t have that certification,” Bryan said. “Unless that certification is gone, they are probably going to be picked up somewhere else.”