CHARLOTTE — A coalition of African American clergy said it supports Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings but is calling for an ethics investigation into former Councilman Tariq Bokhari and a public apology from City Manager Marcus Jones for how the vest controversy was handled.
“We think that there need to be corrections,” said The Rev. Ricky Woods, senior minister at First Baptist Church West. “First of all, the realization that there were missteps.”
The pastor believes missteps led to the situation and the group blames two people.
The group said Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones failed to de-escalate the public feud between Bokhari and Jennings over outer carrier vests.
“We shouldn’t have gotten to the point where we are,” Woods said. “I believe that if the city manager would have better handled the situation as it was initially reflecting itself, then we would have never been at this point.”
The group also said Bokhari exceeded his authority by pushing for officers to wear the vests despite opposition from Jennings.
“The failures are in the efforts of a council person to dictate operational policies to a department head,” Woods said. “A role outside of the role of council.”
The group wants an ethics investigation, originally requested by the NAACP, into Bokhari.
They said that even though he is no longer on the council, an investigation is important to prevent what they called, bad behavior, from councilmembers in the future.
They also want Jones to apologize about how the situation was handled. The group added they do not believe corruption was involved in the settlement.
They support making the settlement public in the interest of transparency.
City Manager Marcus Jones responded to Channel 9 on Thursday, saying: “As I have publicly stated before, when this was going on, I did tell Mr. Bokhari that I did not support his demands of the chief or his approach with the chief and asked him to stop. I have supported Chief Jennings publicly and privately, and I continue to support him. Chief Jennings has served this community for more than 30 years and has demonstrated time and again his strong leadership of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and his tremendous value to the City of Charlotte.”
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