For nearly eight months, two local businessmen – one of them John’s Island resident and celebrated philanthropist Tom Corr – have been trying to convince Vero Beach officials that the city needs a new police chief.
Thus far, however, their efforts have failed, despite presenting City Manager Monte Falls with several examples of conduct they say prove Chief David Currey is unfit to lead the Vero Beach Police Department.
But the concerns put forth by Corr and Gorilla Ammunition co-founder Lanse Padgett have finally prompted Falls to request a special-call meeting of the City Council this coming Monday.
“I’ve spoken with the council members, and I’ve kept them informed every step of the way, but it’s time we talk about this in public,” Falls said. “As I’ve told Lanse, the chief and the council: I don’t have anything that is actionable. I certainly don’t have anything that would rise to the level of termination.
“If you give me something, I’ll act,” he added. “Otherwise, it’s time for this to be over.”
“This is the first citizens’ complaint against me in my career,” Chief Curry said. “I’ve got less than four years left until I retire, and I’m enthusiastic about finishing my career. But this nonsense needs to end.”
Padgett – who says he has Corr’s backing in launching these attacks – claims the department under Currey’s administration closes cases that demand further investigation, deflects and dodges any questioning of its performance and practices, and has created an intolerant work environment in which employees are afraid to speak openly about agency matters.
A former state prosecutor, Padgett believes that not removing Currey places the public’s safety in jeopardy.
“It pains me that we have discovered the systemic pattern of covering up ineptitude and hostile work environments” in the police department, Padgett wrote in an April 3 email to Falls.
He continued: “While we still have the utmost respect and support for the VBPD officers that risk their lives every day, we have lost any sense of respect for upper management …”
Padgett then fired what was an obvious warning shot at Falls, adding, “Monte, your allegiance to your ineffective/deceptive Police Chief Currey at the expense of the safety of the citizens and the employees of VBPD has been noted.”
In a phone interview last weekend, Padgett’s words were even more hostile: “You’ve got a chief that’s a liar and a city manager that’s protecting him.”
As you might suspect, Falls and Currey offer a far different assessment of the Padgett-Corr campaign to oust Currey, who has spent the past 34 years with the city’s police department, the past 12 ½ years as chief.
Currey believes the attacks on him are politically motivated – that Padgett and Corr wanted to push him out and recruit Sheriff’s Captain Milo Thornton to replace him, all in a thinly veiled effort to help Sheriff Eric Flowers’ struggling re-election bid.
The chief said Padgett and Corr, president of the Vero Beach-based George E. Warren Corporation, both supported Flowers’ campaign four years ago, and that they wanted to get Thornton out of the race.
In fact, Padgett confirmed he called Thornton on New Year’s Day to ask if he’d be interested in the Vero Beach chief’s job, but he denied that politics had any connection to his desire to see Currey removed.
For the record: Padgett said Thornton, who had expressed interest in the Vero Beach job “years ago,” told him he was “100-percent committed to the sheriff’s race.”
Reached by phone Monday, Thornton said he was not interested in the police chief’s job and was “totally focused on being the next sheriff of Indian River County.”
So how did Currey respond to the Padgett-Corr push to oust him?
He defended his department’s work, rejecting claims that Vero Beach isn’t safe by providing statistics that show the city’s crime rate has been declining since 2015 – even as the county’s population continues to grow.
“But they say the numbers are cooked,” Currey said, referring to Padgett and Corr.
“Whatever I share with them, it isn’t good enough. Every answer I gave them wasn’t good enough. It starts off as a professional conversation, but it turns into a deposition.”
Among the sources of contention between Padgett and Currey were three incidents that occurred shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, when there was a stabbing at Grind + Grape, a man brandishing a gun outside Filthy’s Fine Cocktails & Beer, and a woman reporting that a man pointed a handgun at her at the Cumberland Farms at the intersection of U.S. 1 and 16th Street.
The suspect in the Grind + Grape stabbing was apprehended within an hour of the attack, but Padgett questioned the accuracy of the police report. He also criticized the handling of the two gun-related incidents, neither of which resulted in an arrest.
Padgett believes both gun cases were closed without sufficient investigation.
He was also critical of the department’s handling of another gun-related incident on Jan. 4 on 10th Avenue, near the police station, where dispatchers received a report that shots were fired during a domestic dispute.
Again, the case was closed without any arrests being made.
According to the police reports pertaining to the three gun-related incidents, however:
- Filthy’s owner Nick Novak refused to provide detectives with video footage of the area in which a man reportedly brandished a gun and fled before police arrived. Currey said he personally called Novak, who told him he didn’t have video of the gunman.
- Shortly after the incident at Cumberland Farms, sheriff’s deputies stopped the car occupied by the man who allegedly pointed a gun at a woman. He admitted he had a gun, which he said was in a holster in the console of his vehicle. But when police called to get the woman’s name and date of birth, the call was disconnected, and she did not answer further attempts.
- The 10th Avenue incident erupted into violence when one of the women involved in a couple’s breakup went to Fort Pierce and returned with a group of men. At least a dozen shots were fired and there were physical confrontations, but the suspects fled and witnesses were uncooperative.
Could the police have obtained a subpoena to force Filthy’s owner to turn over the video?
Yes, but Novak already had said the gunman wasn’t on it. And even if he were, he was wearing a hoodie and ski mask, which would’ve made him difficult to identify.
Could the police have seized the handgun from the man who allegedly pointed it at the woman in the Cumberland Farms incident? Without a witness to identify him? Without probable cause?
Not legally.
To be sure, the police did eventually reach the woman who called in the complaint – yes, even though the case was closed – but she told them she had loaned her phone to a stranger, then hung up.
As for the gunplay on 10th Avenue, the scenario was a mess.
Still, having identified so many of the participants and gathered the shell casings at the scene, couldn’t the police have made a case against anyone?
Maybe, but in their report, police said they closed the case because of “conflicting statements from each party, evidence not aligning with the complainants’ account of events, and lack of cooperation from individuals involved.”
Simply put: The detective couldn’t determine what actually had happened, which is a tough case to take to a prosecutor – especially after the two women whose breakup sparked the incident had since reunited.
Those incidents were among the closed cases cited by Padgett in his attack on Currey, but his criticisms didn’t end there.
Padgett challenged Currey’s decision to purchase license plate readers that are no longer compatible with those used by the Sheriff’s Office, then claimed the chief lied about it.
Currey said the readers were compatible when they were purchased, but the maker of the Sheriff’s Office’s system changed its accessibility. Instead, the department now has an agreement with the Sheriff’s Office to provide immediate radio alerts when suspicious vehicles move into or out of the city.
More disturbing: Padgett said he had spoken with as many as 20 officers, including some who had contacted him, about morale and other problems in the department.
Among those problems, Padgett said, was the “selective targeting” of officers and other employees who fear retaliation if they say anything that conflicts with the administration’s narrative.
He cited one longtime officer who filed a hostile work environment complaint and is now under in-house investigation for allegedly violating a general order. Currey said he couldn’t discuss the situation until the investigation was completed.
The chief was able to discuss the in-house survey conducted by two rank-and-file officers, while off duty and using their own computers, during the summer of 2022.
The survey, which Currey said was done with his permission, was designed to gauge the job satisfaction of officers under the rank of corporal. The results were troubling.
More than two-thirds of respondents believed the survey results would not produce positive change in the department. Only 57 percent said they felt their work was appreciated by top administrators. And 82 percent believed the agency put its public perception ahead of officers’ concerns.
Nearly 68 percent said the department was slow to adapt to modern-day policing and technology, and 61 percent disagreed that there was a strong sense of unity in the agency.
Asked about the department’s morale, 46.5 percent said it was bad, 32 percent said it was average, no respondents said it was great.
Since then, though, Currey said his administration has worked to improve the officers’ working conditions with changes that included switching to more comfortable uniforms, allowing beards and tattoos, establishing more regular interaction between top administrators – including him – and rank-and-file officers, as well as acquiring better equipment and technology.
Yet Padgett, who met with individual City Council members Monday and still plans to get statements from officers to corroborate his claims, continues to push for Currey’s removal.
His efforts, however, might be doing more harm than good, as he files public-records requests to get information.
After investigating claims made by the officer who filed the hostile work environment complaint, the city’s human resources director, Gabrielle Manus, found nothing to substantiate his claim.
But she did state in her April 16 memo to Falls: “It was expressed to me, over and over, that the constant requests for public records and outside interference is severely impacting the morale of the officers.
“They feel they are always looking over their shoulders and are afraid to do their jobs,” she added. “They fear that, if they make even a minor mistake, they will be the subject of the next public records request.
“The officers are very nervous and hesitant to act as a result of the intense scrutiny from outside individuals,” Manus continued. “Many officers expressed concern that the longer the constant attacks on the administration continue, the worse morale will become.”
Padgett called the investigation a “joke.”
It was that memo, however, that prompted Falls to request a special-call meeting of the City Council on Monday.
The complaint from Padgett and Corr, Falls said, is the only one that has been filed against Currey and the police department’s administration.
Is there a way to resolve this conflict to Padgett’s satisfaction with Currey continuing as chief, given the contentious nature of this dispute?
Surprisingly, yes.
Padgett said he would accept such a resolution, but with conditions: He wants Currey to “come clean” – apparently meaning that the chief would need to admit to any shortcomings – and commit to running the department in a more professional way “with Monte making sure he does what he’s supposed to do.”
And get this: Their summit doesn’t need to be public.
“None of this needed to be public,” Padgett said. “That’s why this began with us meeting Monte for lunch in September. This isn’t about embarrassing anybody.”
Maybe not, but Currey’s reputation has taken a hit.