Baltimore County Police Chief Reacts To Vote Of No Confidence
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- On Monday night, roughly 125 members of the Baltimore County Fraternal Order of Police voted to remove Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt from her position.
Hyatt is Baltimore County's first female police chief. A graduate of the FBI National Academy, she spent two decades working her way up the ranks at the Baltimore City Police Department and served as the vice president of security for Johns Hopkins University.
The police union also sent a letter to Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski, notifying him their members have "lost all faith and confidence" in Hyatt's ability to lead the Baltimore County Police Department.
But on Tuesday, Chief Hyatt spoke out for the first time since the vote of no confidence in her leadership. She said caring for the county's officers is among her top priorities.
"The things they need, the tools to do their jobs better, concerns they have, recommendations that they have," is all information the chief said she is getting and is making sure she continues to receive, unfiltered.
But some officers in her department said they have had a different experience.
One officer who voted for the removal of Chief Hyatt told WJZ that she doesn't speak to her officers and said, "she's promised equipment, we don't have enough radios, we barely have enough vehicles to get the job done."
In an interview with WJZ, Hyatt said that Monday's no-confidence vote only represented the opinion of a small fraction of her roughly 1,900 sworn officers.
But Lt. David Sweren, who is also the vice president of the police union said nobody is happy within the department.
"We are losing people left and right and its leadership, leadership, leadership," he said.
"It's my responsibility; it's the responsibility of my leadership team; it's also the responsibility of union leadership," said Chief Hyatt Tuesday.
WJZ spoke with over ten police officers from the Baltimore County Police Department who all say they are terrified to go to work because they are working for a police chief who doesn't have their back.
"She's not trying to fix it," Sweren said. "She's blaming everybody else. That's a problem."