Mayor Dave Merandy's Remarks on Officer Scott Morris
Updated: Jun 12, 2020
The following are Mayor Dave Merandy’s opening remarks regarding Officer Scott Morris in the June 9, 2020 Board of Trustees meeting.
Thus far, this is the only statement made by local officials regarding the topic.
"Something I would like to announce and make clear if I can. Just kind of hard. First of all, I think there's a lot that all the board members would like to say and need time to really get it together and, and make sure things come out in the proper way. I'm talking about the recent bombardment of paste & cut protests regarding officer Scott Morris, who we hired six months ago. Flyers were handed out, from my understanding on Sunday. We became aware of it then. Immediately knowing where this was going, I contacted the officer in charge Larry Burke and also the PBA. And we discussed this, they discussed it with officer Morris. And so he was given like not much time at all to react. There have been some nasty posts that have shown up on Facebook, I understand or in some of the emails regarding Mr. Morris. I don't know how much research everyone's done, if they're just cutting and pasting. There were some very good emails that were sent. They were questioning and asking you know about the hire, which I appreciated, Some had included information they had found-- also appreciated. I think there's a few ways you can deal with things and one of them I think, is not making demands and uh forcing something. It's first getting information and, and you know, and asking, actually, the people who were involved, you know, what was going on and how things were handled. Unfortunately, that's not how this happened. Unfortunately, leaflets are passed out, this is taken as gospel and we run with it. It's kind of a mob mentality as far as I'm concerned type of a way to deal with it.
Um I think we're actually trying to fight [this]. You know, right now, I think the cause is about stuff like this where, you know, you're not really doing things rationally. That said, I talked to officer Morris this afternoon, at around three o'clock. That's why there haven't been any comments or anything up to this point, because it's all about very quickly. In my discussion with Scott, who I will stand behind as a decent person, when we interviewed him, I think everyone felt that way, felt he was a person. He gave us all the information upfront regarding the incident that everyone's concerned about. We do, you know, everything. We did our research, we did our background checks. And we felt that he wasn’t on the scene, and that's one of the biggest things in our decision.
So, just to make everyone aware, during the process, he was totally upfront. It was the first thing he did. It was a very long letter, which he gave the board, explaining the, you know, his situation and his departure from the New York City Police Department (NYPD). We voted on this after questioning, after doing background checks and unanimously voted to hire Officer Morris. Unfortunately, in today's environment, where we're going, I don't feel there's any way, you know, that Mr. Morris could stay on. I do think that he, in the six months that he was here, I think he had a, you know, a very good record. I think everyone was pleased with his performance. So I do feel it's unfortunate. Some people might think, saying that a policeman leaving is unfortunate.
I would, I would argue, argue a point in this case.
Back to my conversation with Mr. Morris. He likes this village very much. He liked working here. He started to get a rapport with the merchants and with people, and the residents of the village. So he was, you know sad that it comes to this. He had to rehash everything that he endured, and everything he went through eight years ago. He now as children and feels, feels that by resigning, it's the best thing for the village and also the best thing for his family. We have mixed feelings on the board about accepting his resignation. We haven't gotten a hard copy. We haven't got the official resignation. This was over a phone call. But he agreed as he did, you know, he also want to be clear in his initial letter to the board when we interviewed him, he did have on there if there was ever a time when this became a problem for the village that he would he would step down, that he did not want to cause any type of problems in the village. So that said, at three o'clock, he did say that he would resign. He was disappointed that he couldn't stay on in the village. So that's an update on Officer Morris."
These remarks were transcribed from video recordings of the meeting.