Greg Pennell is proud of his career as a police officer with the New Albany Police Department.
During 29 years of NAPD service Pennell never once was suspended, even briefly. He won a medal of valor in 2009 for capturing an armed shooter who’d murdered a co-worker at the Pillsbury plant; Pennell pioneered the NAPD’s computer crimes unit along with his and his colleague, Sherri Knight.
Perhaps most impressively, during his police career Pennell conducted himself according to a personal value system of constant accountability to the public.
“As a police officer my boss always was the population of this city,” Pennell says. “I worked for the citizens of New Albany, in my mind and my heart.”
Recently I spoke with Pennell by phone from his home in Florida, where he moved after retiring from the NAPD in mid-2016. When I asked Pennell to explain why he chose to leave the police department when he did, his answer came clear and crisp.
“I supported David White for mayor in 2015.”
Evidently freedom of speech and association had ramifications for Pennell, as it has for others in New Albany, before and since.
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White’s announcement came on September 12, 2014 at the Scribner House in downtown New Albany. Pennell attended the short kickoff in the company of several city employees, including longtime street department workers Donnie Blevins and Clifford Swift.
Pennell remembers glancing across the intersection of Main and State Streets to the sidewalk by Wick’s Pizza and seeing three of Mayor Jeff Gahan’s closest City Hall associates standing there, intently studying the crowd at White’s gathering.
Missy Sarkisian Stotts also came to White’s announcement at the Scribner House. She had worked for many years for the city prior to being downsized in early 2012, less than a year after the 2011 Democratic Party mayoral primary, when she supported the candidacy of one of Gahan’s opponents.
Once Gahan became mayor, Stotts lost her job. She harbors no doubt that picking a primary candidate other than Gahan cost her employment.
Ron Grainger knows, too. He lost his job early, in late 2011, because someone had to be cut to allow the mayor’s future son-in-law Chris Gardner to become flood control director without the slightest relevant experience or qualifications.
Blevins and Swift were pressured and bullied subsequent to their support of White in 2015. They were long-term city employees with exemplary work records, but both opted for early retirement rather than risk being fired from their jobs.
Blevins’ own conclusion about Jeff Gahan is sweeping and comprehensive in its brevity.
“Jeff is a bully.”
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“In 2012 I didn’t know much about Gahan,” says Pennell, who at the time had the merit rank of captain and was the NAPD’s chief of detectives.
The incoming Gahan administration formed a committee and opened a process for officers to interview for the jobs of police chief, assistant chief and major. Pennell decided to interview for the assistant chief’s job. He was offered the position of assistant police chief and accepted it.
Pennell served in the position of assistant police chief for two years, until May of 2014, when he asked to be reassigned back to chief of detectives. His request was concurrent with Knight stepping down as chief.
News reports during this period reveal the NAPD suffering from several internal controversies, with allegations of misconduct and discrimination, merit board decisions and an investigation by the Indiana State Police. In September of 2014, Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson announced that no criminal violations had been found.
“I no longer had confidence in the Gahan administration,” says Pennell, who prefers not to go into further detail.
White’s campaign launch at the Scribner House occurred one week after Henderson’s press conference, and coincidentally, almost immediately thereafter the former police chief and then-current day shift captain Merle Harl retired from the force.
Normally this would have created a vacancy for a new captain to be promoted from the waiting list of sergeants. However, Chief Todd Bailey – Gahan’s choice to replace Knight – called Pennell into his office.
“He asked me to take the day shift captain’s job instead.”
To Pennell, working as day shift captain might as well have been a demotion compared with being chief of detectives. “Why not promote a sergeant?” he asked Bailey – and there was a long silence.
With pins dropping and crickets chirping, it quickly occurred to Pennell that Bailey wasn’t giving him a choice in the matter.
“I could see the handwriting on the wall,” Pennell said. With no options, he resolved to accept Bailey’s decision and also to insist that the chief put into writing what was happening: the day shift captain’s assignment was temporary, and there would be a clear timetable for Pennell’s return to chief of detectives.
Bailey seemed reluctant to produce such a letter but eventually he did. It stated Pennell would return to being chief of detectives by October 12, 2015.*
Reassured, Pennell performed his daily duties as day shift captain and as the date drew near, he prepared for the mandated transition back to chief of detectives.
Then came another plot twist. Shortly before the October 12 deadline a fellow officer alerted Pennell to a message posted by Bailey to the NAPD’s messaging system, stating that the position of chief of detectives was being eliminated – effective immediately.
This was an unexpected and shocking development. As Pennell points out, there had been a chief of detectives in the NAPD for as long as anyone could remember: “It goes back at least to the 1880s, and maybe to the beginning of the police department in New Albany.”
Clearly, Pennell couldn’t return to a position that no longer existed. Upon reading the message he drove to police headquarters to discuss the matter with Bailey, and as luck would have it, the chief was seated in an adjacent squad car as Pennell pulled into a parking spot.
“Todd, do you have a minute to talk about the message?”
Stammering and visibly uncomfortable, Bailey replied that he had only a quick minute, so Pennell got straight to the point and asked about the signed agreement for his return to chief of detectives.
Bailey told Pennell he could go back to the detective division, but not as a captain, meaning Pennell would have to give up his merit rank of captain, which he had earned through the testing procedures put forth by the New Albany Police Merit Commission.
According to Pennell, the police chief “just walked away.” Pennell had the written evidence and still possesses it, and yet he’d been outflanked and knew it.
“I had the letter, and I could have hired an attorney, but what good would an empty promise do?”
So much for trust.
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Pennell concedes that Bailey’s abrupt elimination of the chief of detectives position was upsetting, as was the police chief’s overall attitude toward him.
“Not many things bother me,” says Pennell, “but this one did.”
Recalling Blevins’ account of workplace harassment at the hands of Gahan’s subalterns, as well as those of other former city workers who still fear what might happen if they publicly tell their stories, it’s a familiar and destructive cycle.
What are the effects of bullying? Targeted employees can experience fear and anxiety, depression, and can develop a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder — leading to psychological harm and actual physical illness. This leads to absenteeism and turnover as bullied employees avoid or flee the torturous workplace.
For Pennell, the mental stress exacerbated pre-existing physical conditions, and eventually he took sick leave to try and get better. He was off work for a long period. In mid-2016, Pennell chose to retire rather than continue in an unmanageable situation.
“I didn’t want to string out sick leave, and that was that.”
So it transpired that for Gahan’s purely political reasons, the NAPD lost a highly skilled, veteran officer.
Our chat concluding, Pennell recalls that the work he and Knight were doing at the computer crimes unit was noticed by none other than the Secret Service, which deputized him as a federal marshal from 2007 through his retirement in 2016.
“I think Bailey disbanded the computer crimes unit,” chuckles Pennell.
“Maybe he brought it back after I was gone.”
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Footnote
* Ironically, Bailey himself is a rare survivor who probably can attest to the whims of Gahan’s vindictiveness. He was chief of police at the end of Doug England’s third term, and chose to support England’s handpicked successor, Irv Stumler, in the 2011 primary. Gahan handily defeated Stumler, and Bailey was removed as chief when Gahan took office in 2012. The private terms presaging Bailey’s subsequent comeback remain unknown, but he has since become a frequent Gahan campaign contributor who is willing to openly campaign for the mayor during election season.
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