Columbus city council unanimously confirms new permanent police chief Stoney Mathis

After months of turmoil and uncertainty, Columbus finally has a new police chief.

Columbus Council acted as expected Tuesday and confirmed Stoney Mathis as chief, removing the “interim” title he has worn since May.

Mayor Skip Henderson, who appointed Mathis the interim chief, nominated Mathis for the full-time position at council’s Sept. 26 meeting. He needed at least six of 10 council votes for confirmation.

The vote was unanimous, though District 1 Councilor Jerry “Pops” Barnes was absent. Mathis got a standing ovation afterward.

His confirmation was not without objection, as two supporters of former Chief Freddie Blackmon asked to speak before council’s vote. One was local NAACP President Wane Hailes, the other was the Rev. J.H. Flakes III of Fourth Street Missionary Baptist Church.

Hailes and Flakes have alleged Blackmon, the city’s second Black police chief, was treated unfairly because of his race.

“We’re not trying to be disruptive,” Flakes told Henderson, as he and Hailes stood at the podium to speak.

Henderson told them they’d had 14 days to respond to Mathis’ nomination, and he had not heard from them. Both were on council’s public agenda and could speak then, he said.

Two deputies told Flakes and Hailes to sit down.

Their opposition triggered an emotional response from District 4 Councilor Toyia Tucker.

“I find it disturbing that we can’t come together,” she said. “We have to come together.... My heart hurts.”

She later added: “It’s a sad day when we as Christians don’t show Christ-like behavior.... The only way we’re going to move forward is to move together.”

She also got a standing ovation, as a diverse group of around 100 law enforcement officers, firefighters and support staff had come to witness Mathis’ appointment. Some were from the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, which also had deputies present to keep order.

Sheriff Greg Countryman has said he also supports Mathis. He was out of town Tuesday.

After council confirmed him, Mathis told reporters he did not know what Flakes and Hailes would say, but he was aware critics had been contacting his former employers.

When Flakes and Hailes later took the podium, during the public agenda, they did not criticize Mathis.

Flakes noted first that he had spoken earlier with the mayor about Mathis, so Henderson was incorrect in saying he had heard nothing from him before the meeting.

He said he wanted city leaders to clarify the duties of law enforcement officers assigned to secure sporting events for the county school district, after an incident at the Heritage Bowl, on Aug. 25, where people panicked and ran when a fight broke out.

The game was at the city’s A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium, next to the Columbus Civic Center.

Henderson said the school district is responsible for hiring security, when it rents a city facility. The panic at the ball game in August was the result of 13-year-old girls who had no adult supervision, and got into a fistfight, he said. Responding officers later confiscated some guns from others there, he said.

Flakes also told Henderson the entire community does not feel it has input into the city’s decisions. “There are others who feel that their voices are not being heard,” he said.

Hailes told council that the NAACP is obligated to address any issues brought to its attention, and that was his purpose for speaking. But with Mathis already confirmed as chief, he asked only that Mathis be held to the same standards as Blackmon was. “We’re not here to impugn anyone,” he said.

Both Flakes and Hailes told the Ledger-Enquirer that they had nothing to add, as they left the meeting.

Mathis background

Mathis took the interim position amid intense racial division over council’s ousting Blackmon, whose supporters in February and March crowded council meetings in protest. Blackmon accepted a $400,000 severance package on April 6 and left the job April 30.

Acting on recommendations from the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, Henderson found an experienced replacement in Mathis, who twice served as chief before, in Chattahoochee Hills and in Fairburn, Georgia.

He started as interim on May 8, taking over a police force plagued by low morale and staffing shortages, among other issues identified in a privately funded police study that blamed poor management.

Mathis on his first day said he would focus first on morale: “I’m going to come in and raise the level of morale, that’s my goal.”

Though Mathis said in May that he would not ask to be Columbus’ full-time police chief, he changed his mind and applied in July.

“I think that I have the aptitude and the personality to continue to make this place better; that’s the only reason I’ve applied,” he said.

He proposed changes he said would improve morale and reduced personnel losses in a department that fell 190 short of a full force of 488.

• Cutting 44 positions from the budgeted 488 to free $2.5 million for a $5,000 pay raise to each 911 dispatcher and police officer.

• Targeting home and car burglaries to reduce the number of stolen guns that are used in other crimes.

• Switching from 10 to 12 hour shifts to put more police officers on the street, with one per shift serving in a specialized unit.

• Allowing patrol officers to wear more comfortable police caps with their uniforms.

• Eliminating punishment for minor disciplinary infractions, such as suspending officers for hitting a curb in their city car or being more than 20 minutes late.

Mathis got his formative experience with the Henry County Police Department, starting in 1995 and rising to the rank of deputy chief by 2010.

He was appointed chief of the Chattahoochee Hills Police Department in 2016, and headed the Fairburn Police Department from 2018 to 2022,

Mathis is a graduate of Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, where he played linebacker and defensive end on a championship college football team.

He said was studying to become a college coach when he took a criminal justice course and had to ride with a police officer on duty.

Then he chose an elective course in criminal justice, and had to ride along with a patrol officer as part of the work.

“After I rode with that police officer, I changed my major: I wanted to be a police officer,” he said.