Interim police chief resigns from the Homerville Police Department

HOMERVILLE, Ga. (WALB) - Homerville once again has a new police chief.

Interim Homerville Police Chief Jimmy Herndon turned in his badge and his resignation is now in effect. This is the second time within four months that the police department has had people quit.

In February, the entire Homerville Police Department walked out after Herndon was appointed. Now, Herndon himself has resigned.

Homerville is replacing its police chief, again. Herndon officially handed in his badge and letter of resignation at a Thursday city council meeting.

He says initially he was going to turn the department over in August but decided to resign sooner because he claims there is misconduct by city officials. WALB did reach out to Homerville Mayor Brooks Blitch, but he was not available for comment.

“It’s just, I tried to do what I could do there. There was a lot of stuff when I took over the department, there was no department. There was a lot of damage to the department. There was a lot of multiple investigations into misconduct going on at the same time. So I tried to wrap all that up and they wanted me to rewrite all of their policies, but their timeline on this stuff was quite unrealistic,” Herndon said.

Clinch County is the second biggest county in Georgia, land-wise, both the police department and the Clinch County Sheriff’s Office are struggling to make ends meet.

“I’m still leaning towards they don’t need a police department,” Herndon said. “It, financially and law enforcement wise, doesn’t make sense to have two agencies four-tenths of a mile from each other serving the same population.”

The sheriff’s office is currently understaffed too. Now, with Herndon’s resignation and the possible departure of the three other officers, the sheriff’s office is asking for the county’s help.

“My understanding is the hours that they work is from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. That’s unacceptable as well. If you’re gonna have a police department, it needs to be 24 hours. One deputy can’t cover Homerville city limits and Clinch County,” Clinch County Sheriff Stephen Tinsley said.

But Homerville is not without a police chief. Keith Jackson, previously a police captain on the force, was named the acting police chief and will remain in that position until the end of 2023 with the option to renew at that time.

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