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Resident brings viral police videos to council; council members defend officer they hired
Summary
A Riverview resident said a video of an arrest by a police lieutenant is the top clip on his channel and criticized a fellow resident; council members, including a former police chief, defended the officer and stressed that police personnel matters are handled by the chief and city manager.
Ed Moss, a Riverview resident, used the council’s public comment period on March 3 to describe videos he posts about city life and to raise an incident involving a city police officer. "There is a new category this year that I added... I started to add the live video category," Moss said, and he identified a July 21 video filmed in front of his house in which, he said, "lieutenant, now lieutenant, then sergeant Sean O'Neil... he did arrest me, but then charges were dropped, justifiably so." Moss said that clip recently became the top video on his channel and criticized another resident by name for comments made during a citywide garage sale.
Council members responded during the meeting. Councilman Workman, who said he previously served as chief of police, defended Lieutenant Sean O'Neil and described having hired him when Workman was chief: "I'm the person that hired him. I was chief of police then. I did the background... I know what kind of person he is. I know how he performs. He performs very well. I'm very proud that I'm the 1 that hired him." Workman added that personnel matters fall under the city manager and the police chief.
Other council members also criticized the resident's videos and urged respectful public comment; one council member said much of what the resident posts is "absolutely untrue, not even close to the truth." The council did not take any formal action on the matters raised in public comment, and no city staff report or personnel action was presented at the meeting.
The remarks about videos and the officer occurred during the public comment portion of the agenda; the council reiterated that oversight of the police department is the responsibility of the chief of police and the city manager, not the council.
