Assistant chief says officer Byrd disciplined for route, equipment and recording failures; witness says he did not tell dispatch before leaving scene

Conway — At a civil-service hearing over the termination of Officer Britney Byrd, Assistant Chief Welch testified that the Conway Police Department’s review board concluded Byrd’s response to a mass-shooting incident was “unsatisfactory” because she delayed leaving a parking lot, took a circuitous route to the scene and did not operate emergency equipment or cameras as department policy recommends.

Welch told the commission the decision at the review board rested on Byrd’s delay in departing the tow operation, her choice of route — bypassing Fifth and Third avenues and driving to First Avenue — and multiple recording failures. “The decision to drive under emergency conditions will be discretionary with each individual officer based on the following considerations,” Welch read from the department’s emergency-vehicle directive during testimony. He later said directly, “She should have turned on her blue lights and sirens.”

The issue of body- and dash-camera use surfaced repeatedly. Welch read the department guidance that “activating the body worn camera in the midst of a dynamic event should be done when practical and safe,” but said his review concluded Byrd had time to activate equipment and failed to do so. “Once the shots were fired and the response happened, we’re in the midst of a dynamic situation. She had time to turn things on,” he said.

Why this matters: The department’s characterization of Byrd’s conduct formed the basis for her termination and is at the heart of the commission’s review. Commissioners pressed Welch on whether the active-shooter policy was cited as a grounds for discipline; Welch acknowledged the review did not list a specific violation of that directive even though he said best practice would have been to go “direct to threat.”

Testimony and disputed facts

Welch acknowledged limits to the department’s evidence in parts of the investigation. He said there was video showing Byrd arriving at the park and later at the scene, but that there was no continuous video capturing her route and key portions of the response; he told the commission he was not familiar with all of WatchGuard’s longer-term retrieval features. “I’m not familiar with that,” Welch said when asked whether officers attempted to retrieve more extensive recordings from the WatchGuard system. He added he had reviewed available dash- and body-camera clips and the department’s staff-review materials.

Counsel for Byrd and members of the commission repeatedly pressed Welch about timing and sequencing in the review process. At one point Welch conceded he had misstated the timing of a federal court filing during earlier testimony, saying, “I was mistaken,” after being shown a court order filed July 2 (marked in the record as Exhibit 50).

Witness Officer Nathan Watkins

The commission also heard testimony from Officer Nathan Watkins, who was subpoenaed and called out of turn after attorneys agreed to let him testify before his scheduled vacation. Watkins described being at the funeral-home/parking-lot area earlier in the evening, observing some people run from the park, and speaking with a woman who told him people were “seeing guns.” He said he drove around the block to check and later joined colleagues at the tow operation.

When asked whether he notified dispatch that he was leaving the scene to briefly go to a restaurant, Watkins answered simply, “I did not tell dispatch.” He testified that he pulled into the Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot and “didn’t get out of my car,” then returned to the scene after hearing the shots-fired report. Watkins’s dash-camera record shown in the hearing places his departure around 19:34 and the radio shots-fired call near 19:46, a gap the cross-examiner described as about 12 minutes; Watkins agreed that timeline was consistent with the records available.

What the commission debated

Commissioners and counsel debated several questions that go to how the department and investigators evaluated the response: whether officers who observed crowd members displaying firearms passed that information up to shift supervisors; whether supervisors had intelligence or advance notice about the weekend gatherings at Fifth Avenue Park; whether officers complied with policy standards about activating body-worn cameras during critical incidents; and how the staff-review board reached credibility findings about statements made in witness interviews.

Welch said the board considered Byrd’s route, equipment use and recording failures among the reasons for discipline. He also said the board reviewed other officers (including Officers Riddle and Pugh) and found varying performance but that Byrd’s delay in leaving the tow operation and not activating recording equipment were specifically cited. He testified that the active-shooter directive was not listed among the formal reasons for termination.

Procedural outcomes and next steps

During the hearing counsel and the commission agreed to let Watkins leave for his planned vacation after his testimony. The commission recessed and set a reconvening date; the chair announced the next scheduled session would begin on September 8 at 9 a.m.

Ending

The commission’s review continues; commissioners indicated they will examine dash- and body-camera footage, the staff-review materials and witness interviews further when the hearing resumes. No final disposition by the civil-service commission was recorded in the transcript excerpts heard at this session.