A police officer who used his sidearm to kill a raccoon was the only member of Elon’s municipal staff to lose his job for disciplinary reasons during the past fiscal year.
The Alamance News ultimately learned about the dismissal of former police officer Byron Scott through a public records request that the newspaper recently sent to the town.
In this request, The Alamance News asked Elon’s administrators for a full inventory of staff members who had been suspended, demoted, or terminated during the 12-month period that ended on June 30, 2024. The newspaper also sought additional information about the reasons for any termination – an item that Elon was obligated to turn over under North Carolina’s Public Records Law as well as the state’s personnel statutes.
In response, Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner provided Scott’s termination letter along with some basic information about him and another, current member of the city’s police force who was subject to several disciplinary measures over the past year.
In Scott’s case, the town’s records revealed that the 42-year-old former police officer had been in Elon’s employ for less than six months before was ordered to turn in his badge on April 10, 2024. His tenure, which began on November 11, 2023, came to an abrupt end after he fatally shot a wild raccoon in a manner that apparently alarmed his superiors.
In Scott’s termination letter, Kelly Blackwelder, the town’s municipal police chief, ran through a whole catalog of violations that she said the police officer had committed when he discharged his sidearm at the raccoon. These lapses included the failure to follow departmental safety standards, his misstatements or omissions during a departmental investigation, and his unnecessary use of deadly force on an animal that didn’t pose an imminent threat.
“It is my determination that you acted without due regard for the safety of our community in your haste to dispatch an animal that did not pose an imminent risk to yourself or others,” the town’s police chief went on to conclude. “You did so not only in a densely populated neighborhood but also in a driveway with a home and a public park in your backdrop. Your lack of sound decision-making poses a liability for our department, the town of Elon, and its citizens.”
Because Scott was still on probation, Blackwelder informed him that he had no right to appeal his dismissal. She added, however, that he could ask for a “name-clearing hearing” if he had evidence or testimony that he felt could restore his good name. According to the town’s personnel records, Scott’s salary at the time of his dismissal was $49,196.
Another member of the force who has become acquainted with the police department’s disciplinary procedures is master police officer Jonathan Montanez-Figueroa. Since his arrival at the department on January 15, 2023, the 33-year-old master police officer has been suspended and demoted from his original rank as an acting police sergeant.
Montanez-Figueroa’s reduction in rank came with a corresponding pay decrease of $1,954. Even so, he was still on the city’s payroll when the new fiscal year started on July 1, and his salary had bounced back to its original level of $66,036.
Roedner also informed The Alamance News that the past fiscal year saw the departure of William Clay Davis, who joined the town’s fire department on April 25, 2023 as a part-time firefighter with an hourly salary of $15. Roedner added that the fire department let Davis go on November 6, 2023 because he “was not taking enough hours.” The town manager added that there were “no disciplinary issues involved” in his dismissal.
