Council member criticizes HR contact and defends selection of Captain Tory Mack as police chief

A Decatur council member used the work session to defend the council's selection of Captain Tory Mack as the city's next police chief and to raise concerns about an administrative staff member's conduct during background checks.

The council member said the council selected Captain Tory Mack last week and expected pushback from inside the department and the public, but said Mack was "very capable" and the best candidate the council had. The member said they spoke with Chief Marcel Walker of the Fulton Veil Police Department, who provided positive feedback about Mack, including that Mack had been "very easy to get along with as long as you did what you were supposed to do." The council member said Chief Walker's wife, who worked with Mack at a training academy, also provided favorable comments.

The council member then recounted that an administrative employee from the city's HR area contacted Chief Walker earlier and falsely claimed to be part of the hiring team while requesting "the bad and the good" about Captain Mack. The council member said HR told them the day-to-day operations of the city were "not the business of the council" and that the HR response amounted to treating the incident as a "coaching moment." The council member said that was insufficient and urged stronger action. "I don't see this as a coachable moment. I see this as a fireable moment," the council member said.

The councilmember said the misrepresentation — telling an outside chief the caller was on the hiring team when they were not — raised red flags given past disciplinary actions elsewhere in city departments. No formal disciplinary action was recorded in the work session minutes presented during the meeting and no council vote on personnel discipline occurred in the session.