EDITORIAL: Brookville Police Chief Terry Mitchum berates woman in BTC meeting, one councilman laughs while the other four let it happen

AN EDITORIAL By John Estridge

In covering town councils in several communities and four counties, I have experienced many, many meetings and many different council members and many different officials associated with those towns and cities.

Tuesday night, September 14, was the ugliest town council meeting with the officials acting the ugliest I have ever experienced in my life. Not surprisingly, it was Brookville Town Council and it was Brookville Police Chief Terry Mitchum.

A businesswoman, whose family business has been located downtown for nine decades, complained about what she considers police harassment of her business, her employees and her customers. Her business has given service to the community and provided jobs for generations of residents in Brookville and in the county.

In my time covering Brookville Town Council, there has never been any other business owner ever come into a council meeting and complain about police harassment. That lady has never uttered a bad word, to my knowledge, about a police officer in her life.

But she joins a chorus of other people who have complained of late about police harassment, with two women specifically talking about Brookville Police Department Chief Terry Mitchum. And Tuesday night, Mitchum showed everyone why he has been accused of that.

The complainant wrote council members a letter specifying the times and the ways her business, her employees and her customers have been harassed. It goes from the vehicles she and her employees drive that must park on side streets as everyone who works downtown has to do because our streets are filled with parking meters.

And if any of their vehicles’ tires go up at all on the curbs of the side street, in any small way, then they receive a ticket. It is necessary to get as far over as possible toward the curb and the sidewalk because many, many people speed up and down the very narrow side streets every day. She told council members her employees have had side mirrors ripped off numerous times.

With large delivery vehicles out in the business’ parking lot, many of her customers have to park where their tires touch the sidewalk. That has caused her customers to receive tickets. She has paid for all of her customers’ tickets, but she has lost some business specifically because of it.

One time while outside trying to get the police officer to quit ticketing her customers’ vehicles, Mitchum pulled up and publicly berated her.

He soon gave an example of his berating demeanor at the meeting.

Mitchum stood very near the woman while he screamed into the microphone how he was not the one yelling at the scene, she was the one yelling at the scene and using obscenities. When she tried to defend herself, he told her she could not because now was his time. While she had given her speech, her voice had not been raised. She had been calm. The dichotomy could not have been more pronounced.

Hey, I am all for someone giving their side of the story, but that was not the time and that was not the method. He should have taken what she had to give and then at the next day, in private, spoken to a couple of council members and told them his side of the story. Then, things could have gone from there, if we had council members who care about the people who live in town and pay taxes.

I know this is 2021, but males, especially large males, should not treat females in that way. Heck, they should not treat other males the way Mitchum treated that female that night.

The other instance was in my neighborhood and the female who was involved in that altercation said Mitchum treated her so badly she wanted her and her husband to put the house on the market the next day. I told her she should not allow the likes of Terry to run her out of town. She said no one had ever treated her the way Mitchum treated her. I believed her at the time she told me, but Tuesday night kind of emphasized her point.

It is a bully mentality plain and simple. He has berated two women I know about. I am sure there are probably more. I believe part of his problem is he is a misogynist. But he is also a bully. That is a brute with brutish actions. It is not a police chief. Treating people like that should not come from any police officer or anyone else for that matter, but we expect police officers to act better than the rest of the populace. I was taught from the time I was a little boy to look up to and respect police officers. I still do, but I do not look up to and I do not respect Terry Mitchum. It is such a sad coincidence that as we remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001, when police and firemen across the nation became our heroes, our local police chief has decided to flush that enormous reservoir of respect and admiration right down the drain.

One thing I want to go back to and emphasize is no other business owner in my 30-plus years in Brookville has ever complained about one police officer, not one. I was the newspaper editor for more than 30 years, so I would have known about it. But no other police chief prior to Mitchum would have put either his officers or himself in a place where almost their entire interactions with the town’s populace are negative in nature.

One retired police officer who lives in town said when police drive through his neighborhood now, he and his neighbors wonder who the police officers are coming over to ticket, warn or otherwise have negative interactions with the people they are supposed to serve and protect. It has not been this way until this past year, since January 1, 2021

But more than Mitchum’s meltdown, was the fact the five town council members allowed him to do that, allowed him to yell, scream and get so close to that woman in front of them that she publicly cried, and she did so in a meeting they were supposed to control. They were supposed to protect her while she talked to them and she did not talk to Mitchum. Not one of them came to that woman’s defense. I am terribly upset with myself because I did not stand up and tell him to stop.

Even worse than all of the above is one town councilman appeared to find the entire event humorous. Councilman Eric Johnson appeared to laugh during that terrible situation.

Later, as the meeting further deteriorated, two men were escorted out of the building by Mitchum for I guess them being unruly, think of the irony of that. They had asked BTC President Curtis Ward to slow down as Curtis read the resolution the council later unanimously passed, floating a $2.2 million bond issue for the purchase of Pig in a Poke Golf Course and the Zimmer building, with the latter purchase to give Mitchum a new place to put his feet up on his desk and practice yelling at women.

Curtis refused to slow down his reading to where people could actually hear the words he was reading. He told them to call Clerk/Treasurer Gina Gillman the next day and get a copy. That is really good PR for Curtis, but we have come to expect such arrogant, haughty behavior from him.

There will be more on that $2.2 million bond issue in the near future, because that is almost twice the amount of money Curtis told all of those people at the August 24 meeting we, as taxpayers, would have to bond.

Near the end of this terrible meeting, one man in the crowd told Eric Johnson “you are a joke.” The man was still upset Eric had laughed as Mitchum made that woman cry. Eric, who does little during a meeting other than make demeaning facial expressions at those in the crowd and now laugh at crying women, became angry. He actually turned on his microphone, pulled it up to him, and told the man to “take that back.” The man stood his ground and said he would not.

Again, I have never seen anything like this before.

When a person put herself on the agenda to ask questions – the only way people are supposed to be allowed to ask questions now that this council has stifled public comment — Curtis refused to answer any of the questions. And he would not entertain any questions on Pig in a Poke Golf Course, saying the golf course was not on the agenda.

I guess he forgot about the resolution we could not understand concerning the $2.2 million in tax money going for a bond to purchase it.

These town council members are the worst I have ever experienced anywhere. Terry Mitchum is the worst and most dangerous police chief I have ever had the displeasure to meet.

And we, the Brookville citizens, have to put up with them. May God have mercy on all of us.