Maxton has a problem, and it looks to be growing.
Residents on Tuesday made clear to the Board of Commissioners that they are not pleased with the recent firing of a longtime police officer, Jamie Oxendine, who was a captain before he was fired last month after almost a quarter of a century serving that town. We have spoken with other law enforcement officers who know Oxendine and whose opinion we value, and they had nothing but good things to say about him, including that he is honorable, competent and loves that community.
His departure, unless it is reversed as those residents who attended Tuesday’s meeting want, would make Oxendine the second high-ranking police officer in Maxton to leave in recent months. Tammy Deese, the town’s police chief at the time, left last fall in the midst of a public dispute with Kate Bordeaux, the town manager.
Deese, who now is as a major for the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, had worked as a Maxton police officer since she was a teenager, and as its chief since 2012. The exit of Deese and Oxendine takes from the Maxton department about 50 years of law enforcement experience.
While residents have been vocal in their criticism of Bordeaux, she continues to enjoy the support of Mayor Chip Morton and the board, who call her competent and say she is making changes that are long overdue. Bordeaux has been troubled in Maxton by a past that caught up with her, including having been fired by Guilford County’s ABC Board in 2010 after a state report raised questions about perks such as meals, trips, and free alcohol she supposedly received from companies for which she awarded contracts.
At the time, she went under the name Katie Alley, and we want to say clearly she was never charged with a crime — and even if she made mistakes, we believe strongly in redemption.
Maxton officials insist she was fully vetted before she was hired. So should we believe that town officials knew about what allegedly happened in Guilford, but hired her anyway?
Oxendine appears to have a lot of support from town residents, and also the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association in his corner. The association is arguing that Oxendine’s firing was because of his use of online data bases that are available to police officers in finding out about Bordeaux’s issues in Guilford County, and that the firing was in retaliation.
A spokesman for the Police Benevolent Association made it clear on Tuesday that the town has two choices: reinstate Oxendine or be prepared to defend itself in a civil lawsuit.
“That’s not what we want, that’s a last resort,” Brandon McGaha, a staff representative for the association, said during a presentation to the town on Tuesday.
Town officials are constrained by the law on what they can say publicly, which is a good thing mostly, but does allow for the rumor mills to churn. We don’t know with certainty who orchestrated Oxendine’s firing, but we do know that it almost certainly came with the blessing of the town manager and the commissioners.
We would encourage the parties on both sides of this dispute to try to come to a solution without heading to court, where things are destined to get uglier and costlier, especially for the town. We know Oxendine has had at least one other opportunity in law enforcement, but appears determined to return to serve Maxton.
That gives us hope that things could still be worked out amicably.