MOORESVILLE, N.C. — One day after Mooresville’s police chief submitted his resignation, Channel 9 sat down with the interim chief to talk about the shake-up.
[Mooresville police chief resigns after claims of hostile work environment]
Chief Ron Campurciani took over the department in June after the interim town manager placed Chief Damon Williams on paid administrative leave. The move followed claims of workplace hostility and racial tensions within the department.
Campurciani’s contract is up in mid-December.
“As of right now, on Dec. 17, I’m getting on a plane and going back home,” Campurciani said. “So, we haven't had any discussions. Whatever time I have left here on this job, we're going to move forward on it, and I'm going to make the changes I think need to be made, regardless of how much time is left.”
Campurciani’s time at the department has been darkened by an internal personnel investigation involving the police department, which was conducted by an outside agency. That investigation is now complete, but the town won’t release it to the public, citing a state personnel law.
Campurciani said he has seen not it in its entirety.
“The only ones I was privy to were people who would have come under me,” Campurciani explained. He said he did not feel he needed to have access to the full report in order to run the department and make necessary changes.
He did confirm two senior staffers, who he demoted to the rank of police officer, were moved directly because of findings in the report.
When he arrived at the department, Campurciani said he found several issues. The most glaring was the intense grieving members of the department were going through in the wake of K-9 Officer Jordan Sheldon’s murder in May.
“They hadn’t really grieved right,” Campurciani said. “They were still walking in the walls here and sort of, as a collective, didn’t really know what was going on.”
He said he organized a dinner for the entire department shortly after he got there and made it a place where employees and their families could share memories or vent their frustrations.
“The rules were there were no rules,” Campurciani explained.
From a procedural standpoint, the chief said he began changing policies immediately. The first was the department’s practice of sending officers to calls without back-up.
“That was just so foreign to me,” he said. “The problem with that is, you never know what's going to happen. I had to change that. It was beyond me why they did things like that. I just couldn't understand.”