Daily News | Grudges, tribalism, and infighting rife in Pennsylvania borough that hired the cop who killed Tamir Rice
TIOGA — Standing in a nondescript corner of the Tioga Borough Council Room, Mayor David Wilcox read from a printout of the Pennsylvania police oath and swore in his small town’s new police officer. A few feet away, a clean-shaven man raised his right hand and took the pledge.
“This situation has now further deteriorated with name calling, cursing and physical threats,” Jeff Loomis, who said he’s been the borough’s solicitor for 17 years, wrote in a scathing July 11 resignation letter. “Quite simply, as elected officials you should all be embarrassed by how your meetings and interactions with one another are being conducted.”
David Wilcox, head coach for the local high school’s wrestling team, was appointed mayor of Tioga in April 2021, after former Mayor Mark Rice died unexpectedly. Wilcox, who lives in town with his young family, was welcomed as an energetic leader who stepped into the role with ideas like creating a farmers market and improving the pool.
Wilcox’s attorney, David Smith, responded with a letter to the borough solicitor saying the challenge was “based on the thinnest technicality and is obviously contrived to retaliate against him” because Wilcox had arranged for an outside audit of borough financial records. Borough Council members wrote to Spotlight PA in an email that there has been no formal agreement to pay the firm, and said the auditors have not provided any findings to the borough.
“I constantly am concerned about when he will come in and what he will demand or accuse me of next, when I am doing absolutely nothing wrong and just fulfilling the roles of the job that I was hired for,” Stone wrote. As the head of the council’s personnel and police committees, one of Wheeler’s first tasks was to update contracts for the police department. He was alarmed to find the borough’s only police officer, Michael Northup, did not complete a psychological evaluation and had been in the role since November 2021.
A few months of searching went by before the borough had three candidates for its sole full-time officer position. One candidate from Philadelphia dropped out due to a family emergency, Wheeler said. Another worked for the borough previously and was let go in 2014.In the job application Loehmann submitted to Tioga borough, he described a “police involved shooting” in 2014, “where the suspect killed was later determined to be a juvenile armed with a replica handgun at an open recreation center.
Loehmann went to Tioga for an interview in May 2022. The Borough Council’s police committee — Wheeler, Hazlett, Council Member Alan Brooks — and Wilcox, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the police department, met with him. In at least six Borough Council meetings in 2022, Tioga residents pressed the council about public safety. For a borough “in desperate need” of a police officer, as Wilcox wrote on Facebook, things seemed to be coming together as Loehmann’s application moved forward.
A June 7 story published in the Wellsboro Gazette about the hire printed Wheeler’s incorrect spelling and identified Loehmann asWilcox told Spotlight PA that he attended Loehmann’s interview and insisted that the resume presented to him during the interview had Loehmann’s name spelled incorrectly. Spotlight PA obtained Loehmann’s application through a Right-to-Know request; his name was spelled correctly throughout.
Facing overwhelming backlash online and from residents, Hazlett — who in 2015 had called Tamir Rice “dumb” in a Facebook post — wrote on Facebook on July 7 that Loehmann had withdrawn his application. But that didn’t end the controversy. But Spotlight PA’s review found state law allowed the borough to employ Loehmann as long as he didn’t perform police duties before the database check was completed. Additionally, Spotlight PA’s investigation found the check would not have returned any information, as Loehmann had not previously been a Pennsylvania officer.
Loehmann completed such a form, which was notarized and dated June 8, according to a copy Spotlight PA obtained. Stone, borough secretary at the time, told Spotlight PA that she uploaded the form to an MPOETC website for review. In response to a Right-to-Know request, the state police said the agency was not in possession of that record.
But Shapiro’s letter inflamed concerned residents. A woman asked about it after the Borough Council met for a special meeting on July 12. “So what the Attorney General said is true?” she said. “There was no background check done?” When Brooks replied that he was not sure, the woman asked again, “But [the attorney general] would have had no reason to lie, right?”
“In a borough, the mayor is weak,” Mary Jane Kuffner Hirt, a professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and local government expert, told Spotlight PA in an email. “The mayor asked the police committee to resign and the members did. … Was he acting as the moral authority of the borough?”
“From the beginning, the grudges that have made their way into the elected officials’ agendas have not only hurt the community but will continue to have lasting effects on this once tight knit community,” Stone wrote in her resignation. At the special meeting July 12, Wilcox and Council Members Holly Irwin, Bill Preston, Brooks, and Wheeler sat around a folding table on the porch of the borough building in the summer heat. So many people showed up for the meeting that the leaders had to move it outside.The crowd of about 60 watched closely and cheered as Brooks amended the agenda to also accept the resignations of the Hazletts and Loomis, as well as code enforcer Andre Reed.
With no objections, the vote continued. Though it may not have been technically valid, by the next council meeting, held Sept. 14, the point was moot because the resignations were automatically accepted.
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