At Friday’s Tennessee POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission) meeting, the POST investigator pointed to continuing issues with the Grundy County Sheriff’s Department.
In September, Commission Chair Chad Partin, who also is the sheriff in Coffee County, expressed concerns about background checks for new hires and used firm wording toward Grundy County Sheriff Heath Gunter, saying he could find himself out of office if he didn’t “clean this act up.”
The commission on Friday voted to have a formal hearing about the decertification of Gunter, meaning he could lose his certification and job.
No official date for the decertification hearing was set, even though the board said it could happen as early as January 2024.
Partin abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote to hold a decertification hearing on Gunter.
It was brought up again that Grundy County had deputies on the Brady/Giglio list still on patrols. The list is for law enforcement officers with a history of making false statements. Once an officer is placed on the list, the district attorney can choose not to allow the officer to testify in court.
One deputy, Kevin Smith, now serving as an SRO and supposedly on the Brady/Giglio list, addressed commissioners Friday. Smith said commission investigators had never interviewed him.
