Toledo City Hall was standing room only on Monday as a swarm of community members gathered to question a recent city decision to fire Duane Garvais Lawrence, who served as Toledo’s police chief from October 2022 to early July 2024.
The City of Toledo confirmed last week that it terminated Garvais Lawrence’s contract without cause on July 2.
In an email to a Chronicle reporter sent on Thursday, July 11, Garvais Lawrence detailed recent conflicts between himself and Toledo Mayor Cherie DeVore, some of which included Toledo City Clerk Rachel Beaver-Campbell and Toledo police officer Tarryn Carter, that he believes led to the City of Toledo terminating his contract.
To the crowd’s general frustration, many of the questions asked Monday evening went unanswered.
“We all know why a lot of people are here: to give public comment on a specific issue,” Toledo City Attorney Jim Buzzard said before the city council opened public comment at the end of its regular July 15 meeting. “The ex-police chief has stated generally in the public that he intends to sue the city … and perhaps employees of the city, so of course it is my advice to the city council not to engage in dialogue during public comments.”
Buzzard told the crowd gathered Monday that anyone was welcome to ask whatever questions or make any comments they wished, but, he said, “Please don’t be surprised if there’s not going to be an answer.”
While Buzzard said he hoped this disclaimer would “hopefully avoid any frustration” at the meeting, many Toledo community members left Toledo City Hall Monday night as disgruntled, if not more so, than when they entered.
DeVore ultimately ended the meeting after about 30 minutes of public comment when several community members became engaged in a heated side argument.
While each public commenter was given three minutes to testify and were told that they would only be allowed to speak once, the public comment section quickly devolved to a question-and-answer format, with commenters shouting out questions to DeVore and the council members, who replied each time that they could not answer their questions.
Garvais Lawrence himself wasn’t present at Monday’s meeting, but most of the community members who delivered public comments expressed their support for the former police chief and opposed the city’s decision to fire him.
Several commenters relayed the positive impacts they’ve seen in the community since Garvais Lawrence became Toledo’s police chief, or instances where Garvais Lawrence went out of his way to help them.
“I’ve watched our chief of police use community-oriented policing ideas to transform Toledo into a peaceful and safe community,” said Toledo resident Angela Reed, who came to Monday’s meeting with a petition signed by roughly 69 city residents demanding Garvais Lawrence’s reinstatement.
During her testimony on Monday, Reed noted that DeVore was elected in November 2023 with 124 votes out of 183 total.
Referencing the number of people who signed the petition to reinstate Garvais-Lawrence, Reed said, “That’s more than half of the current mayor’s total votes. With more time, I could have gathered actually more votes for Garvais Lawrence, but I didn’t find out about this until the last couple days.”
Two Toledo residents expressed sympathy Monday for the city government and asked their fellow community members to remain civil until the full truth of the matter comes out.
“They are doing the right thing, no matter how pissed off everyone is,” said resident Rachel McBride of the city council’s and the mayor’s decision not to engage in dialogue Monday or to elaborate on the decision to fire Garvais Lawrence. “Even though you need more information, I’m sure that if we let (the city’s) legal counsel and Duane and the city sort it out amongst themselves, the truth will be known as soon as we actually have all the facts.”
Reed later added, “We don’t know what his success criteria was from a performance evaluation perspective, and we aren’t the ones judging that. Whether we like it or not, our elected officials evaluate his performance, and we need to let them do that.”
The only comment from the Toledo City Council on the issue Monday night was made by Council Member Jamie Scalise, who said, “When you make assumptions, you make an ass out of you and me. And that’s all I have to say.”
Other topics discussed during public comment on Monday night included Cheese Days, the Soto-Bloomstrom Family Fireworks Show and the Washington State Department of Transportation’s recent installation of a three-way stop on state Route 505 near North Second Street at milepost 7 — which several residents were staunchly against.
A recording of the meeting can be viewed online via the City of Toledo’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbw4s4sAhtU.
The City of Toledo is currently in the process of recruiting and hiring a new police chief. Carter, a U.S. Army veteran with experience in military police and reserve police officer work who joined the department in January, is the point of contact for the police department while the city navigates the hiring process, according to DeVore.
