Lt. Morgan Ford was decommissioned for not following department policies
when she ordered officers to break into a home to rescue eight dogs.
Photo via tennessean.com
Something about this story doesn’t make sense. A Nashville policewoman has been decommissioned after she order subordinates to rescue a mother dogs and seven puppies from an abandoned house. According to a police spokesman, Lieutenant Ford “made a series of decisions that violated police protocol.” But when you hear the particulars, it’s hard not to sympathize with her:
[O]fficers heard dogs barking at a home at 3426 Brick Church Pike. . . .He said the home had been damaged by floodwater and that no one was living in it, but that when officers looked inside they saw a mother dog and seven puppies.
“As much as they could tell, this home had been abandoned and the conditions inside the home appeared to be extremely poor, with animal feces everywhere,” Aaron said. “Officers believed the health of the animals to be at risk.”
He said the officers requested that Metro Animal Control come to the house to get the dogs but that Animal Control did not believe the dogs were in an emergency situation and declined to come.
Given the situation, Lieutenant Ford ordered the officers on the scene to break into the building and rescue the dogs, which she then took to a local veterinary clinic.
Here’s the weird part: the dogs were found to be in good health and were returned to their owner. How can that be, given the description above?
It’s hard not to see that Lieutenant Ford was acting with the best intentions, although she certainly violated protocols. What do you think?
A classic case of you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The italics part reads like a commendation. I don’t get why they disciplined her; she made the judgment call using real time situational information. I say she made the right call.
The owners of the dogs should be punished, not the officer. It’s sass backwards!
Please sign our petition to help this is crazy!
You must be kidding! She should have been promoted to police chief for her actions and the cowards who demoted her should be fired. She knows the true meaning of TO SERVE.
Let’s fight for her, sign our petition to help!
https://www.change.org/p/madison–nashville-tn-give-lieutenant-morgan-ford-her-title-back-and-a-community-service-medal?recruiter=231047246&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive
Hi Jess,
I couldn’t get to the change.org petition. Is it still up?
Hey everyone. Please donate and share the fundraiser we have set up for Lieutenant Ford. She has been decommissioned without pay and will need assistance during that time. The page also contains the accurate account of the incident from the source.
https://www.youcaring.com/other/help-for-decommissioned-metro-police-lieutenant-morgan-ford/307124
She might have been able to argue that she was doing the right thing until the point when she decided to take a puppy home.
I know of several nashville police officers consisting of sergeants and lieutenants who were decommissioned and/or demoted. They did not quit their jobs. They hung in there. It was very stressful for these supervisors but they realized that they needed their jobs and decided to continue serving Nashville as police. They were not QUITTERS. If you are demoted or decommissioned it does not mean you have to resign. I believe morgan stated that taking a dog home was wrong, but the other decisions she believed were not wrong. It only takes one misstep to get in trouble and she knows that. You should not have resigned Morgan! If you got bumped down to sergeant, you would have still been a supervisor.
It all has to do with the current police administration. Every officer is at risk, and as any will tell you — it ‘s just a matter of time before their number comes up. In the past, an officer would be suspended a day or two for an infraction; these days they are asked to turn their badges and guns in. Some officers are asked to resign without having committed any infraction —- the powers have just “lost confidence” in them. Police work is an odd field anyway. In most professions you get ahead by accepting responsibility and working hard. In police work all that leads to is a thick disciplinary folder, denied promotions, forced transfers and ultimate dismissal.