COOPERTOWN, TN (WSMV) -
A Middle Tennessee town is without a police force after the police chief suddenly resigned Friday.
It is the latest event in a long-running series of issues for the Coopertown Police Department, which has had 10 chiefs in 11 years.
Police Chief Paul West was the most recent person to resign or be terminated from the force as West turned in his resignation to Mayor Sam Childs on Friday.
"I don't feel good about it. It's something he felt he had to do, and I respect his feelings," Childs said.
The past decade has been a troubling one for the small community located about 30 miles northwest of Nashville. The former mayor was voted out of office in 2008 after being accused of running speed traps and other types of mismanagement.
Childs said he had hoped his administration would put the city in a more positive light, but in mid-May, Eddie Brown said he was driving his truck through Coopertown when then-police officer Robert McCormick pulled him over and confiscated his driver's license.
Brown complained to the mayor and his license was returned, and officer McCormick was later fired. Brown said he isn't grieving the chief's resignation.
"I think he needed to quit, because he knows how he treated me when I was there," Brown said.
After Brown's run-in with McCormick, a police dashcam video surfaced, which appeared to capture McCormick and another officer speaking off-camera about what had happened. McCormick is overheard accusing Childs of overstepping his bounds, calling him a liberal expletive. And he also referred to Brown using the n-word.
The chief's resignation is a part of the still-growing fallout from the video. Although Brown is glad to see the chief go, not everyone in Coopertown shares his feelings.
"I think it's awful," said resident Billy Stout. "He's a good man."
For now, the Robertson County Sheriff's Office is patrolling the town until Childs hires a new chief and one new police officer. He said that's all his budget will allow.
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