Colwyn Council President Tonette Prey tells NBC10 that the borough's Mayor has overstepped his bounds. Mayor Daniel Rutland suspended three police officers yesterday -- one officer is accused of tasering a teen in a holding cell, a second officer supposedly watched the incident and Rutland suspended the police chief saying he should have told the Mayor what was going on.
"The Mayor has no right to take the actions that he has," Prey told NBC10's Lu Ann Cahn, exclusively, this morning. "There are politics at play," Prey said.
Christopher Broach, who helps run the neighborhood watch group also insists that it's all political -- part of an ongoing battle between the mayor and the council. He says the Mayor has always wanted police chief Wendell Reed out and the council has always wanted him in.
"I feel sorry for the kid," Broach told NBC10. "I just feel it's a crying shame that anyone would try to politicize an incident like this."
When the mayor suspended the officers on Wednesday, he put Lt. Wesley Seitz in charge of the small force. The council then suspended Seitz and late last night, Rutland declared a state of emergency to reinstate Seitz.
De-Qwaun Jackson, 17, admitted to NBC10 that he wasn't being very cooperative last week when he was arrested for disorderly conduct. Even so, Jackson says he shouldn't been tasered while he was handcuffed and in a cell.
Deputy Chief Wendell Reed told NBC10 that he wasn't hiding anything from the mayor. He says that he, like the mayor, didn't find out about the alleged incident until well after it happened.
If history is any measure, when the issue comes up at tonight's 7:30 council meeting, which is a regularly-scheduled meeting, it could be better than anything on primetime television.
