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"I don't like this book because it don't got know pictures" Chief Rhorerer

“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”
“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

Fired Belding cop's past problems with department detailed in personnel file



BELDING, MI - The personnel file for a longtime Belding Police officer fired after an off-duty fight outside a Kent County bar shows the recent termination wasn't the city's first attempt to end his employment.
Jason Cooper was fired in October after a fight earlier that month outside Grattan Irish Pub, 11817 Old Belding Road NE. Police Chief Dale Nelson conducted an internal investigation into Cooper's conduct and determined Cooper's actions brought shame to himself and the force, demanding his dismissal, according to documents obtained by MLive and The Grand Rapids Press under the Freedom of Information Act.
A Kent County Sheriff's Department investigation showed a man began to call Cooper racial slurs, leading to a fight involving Cooper and up to six others outside the bar. A witness told Belding Police that Cooper initially walked away from a seemingly heated conversation with a man, but later ran across the parking lot and grabbed the man by his shirt after he directed a slur at Cooper, records show.
Ashley Geldersma, a Clarksville resident who was pregnant at the time, said she was hit in the side during the melee and alleged the punch came from Cooper's direction. She filed a complaint with the sheriff's department. Cooper told a deputy he didn't strike her.
Cooper earlier this year was absolved of any wrongdoing after he shot and killed Bernard "Bud" Rowley, of Sidney. The Ionia County prosecutor concluded Cooper had acted in self-defense after Rowley in January shot at Cooper and a Michigan State Police trooper during a traffic altercation. That incident is not reflected in Cooper's personnel file.
City records show Cooper was hired by the department in 1998. In 2000, he was terminated for an unjustified police pursuit and allegedly providing false statements during an investigation into the transport of a suspect. He returned to the job after federal arbitration but was suspended for 90 days without pay, documents show.
In this year's firing, Nelson wrote in Cooper's disciplinary record that the officer portrayed conduct "unbecoming of a law enforcement officer" by allowing himself to lose control and physically attack someone after ethnic slurs were made toward him outside Grattan Irish Pub.
"Your failure to avert the assault when you should, showed a continued lack of control and unprofessional response," Nelson wrote. "Your actions have brought discredit to yourself and the Belding Police Department."
Cooper allegedly didn't report the incident to Nelson despite "ample" opportunities during two work shifts following the incident, which Nelson said was Cooper's effort to conceal his off-duty behavior, records show.
A Kent County Sheriff's deputy told Nelson that Cooper spoke about the incident but declined to divulge possible witnesses, write a statement or allow photographs of his injuries. Cooper argued he didn't feel he needed to take those steps because he was told the case "was not going anywhere," documents state.
Cooper's personnel file shows high performance rankings in recent years but also details past problems, the majority of which occurred in 1999 and 2000.
In 2000, the then-city manager and police chief wrote that Cooper compromised the safety of others when he pursued a truck that ran a stop sign. Two teenage girls sat in the bed of the truck, which Cooper chased down a two-track road at night, traveling at high speeds beyond city limits, documents state. The pursuit caused $2,000 damage to the patrol vehicle.
Cooper was also accused of providing evasive statements regarding the pursuit and another incident in which he allegedly transported an arrest subject in his vehicle without handcuffing the person.
Officials in 1999 said Cooper failed to complete daily log and incident reports for numerous incidents such as assault and battery, a missing child and a suspected drunken driver. Cooper in a written reply to the then-chief wrote "I don't make up sh-- to make my log look good, like some. You can tell by my mileage that I don't sit on my a--. I drive around to find things, but sometimes you just can't."
City officials also claimed Cooper falsified his application for employment by failing to list that he was released from the Ionia County Sheriff's Department, his most recent employer prior to the Belding Police Department, during a probationary period in the late 1990s.

City Manager Meg Mullendore in mid-November denied grievances filed after Cooper's recent termination.