[8/14/03]Fired police officer Gary Cooper should find out in 10 days whether cutting a teenager some slack at a roadblock will cost him the job he had for 10 years.

After three hours of testimony, the Vicksburg Civil Service Commission took the case under advisement.

The case developed after Hildon Sessums, 19, wrote a letter complaining of police harassment when he was taken into custody at a roadblock for a too-loud pickup radio on the afternoon of May 22. It was Cooper who arrested Sessums and then released him on the belief he was a close relative of David Sessums, Cooper’s attorney previously and who represented him at Wednesday’s hearing.

“All he did was give a teenage young man a break,” David Sessums told the three-member commission.

Police Chief Tommy Moffett said, however, that Cooper had a longer record of infractions and that a release based on favoritism could not be tolerated especially since all officers had been told to make arrests for excessively loud car stereos without exception.

“When this young man was set free after being arrested, it is my belief that it was done as a personal favor for gain,” Moffett testified.

The officer’s firing was upheld by the city board on June 5.

Cooper testified that he handcuffed Hildon Sessums near a Bazinsky Road roadblock, placed him in a patrol car and was taking him to the police station about 4:30 p.m.

“I said, Who’s your people?” Cooper said. “He said, I’m kin to the Sessumses.’ I said, You kin to David?’ He said, Yeah.'”

The teen’s father is a medical doctor and the Sessums families are distantly related.

“I’m going to give you a break this time, but it’s going to be your only break,” Cooper said he told the teen before driving him back to his vehicle and releasing him.

Cooper’s supervisor, Sgt. Randy Blake, was manning the roadblock with about seven other officers, Cooper said. Blake said that, when he saw Cooper back at the scene, he asked Cooper what was going on.

“I’m doing David a favor,” Blake quoted Cooper as saying after Cooper returned to the road-block area. “I couldn’t arrest (the teen) for loud music, good as (David Sessums)’s been to me when I was going through my problems.”

Sessums argued Wednesday that Cooper’s firing was “grossly disproportionate” to the offense. He argued that the discretion Cooper used in releasing Sessums was not unlike officers’ issuing warnings for speeding violations, as he said had been done in the past three weeks for Mayor Laurence Leyens and Alderman Gertrude Young.

City Attorney Nancy Thomas countered that while Cooper may have had discretion in a case prior to making an arrest, he did not have any afterward as to whether he completed the arrest and booking. Thomas also said Cooper had been disciplined five times during Moffett’s 22 months as chief, including two suspensions for a total of eight days.

Before testimony started, Sessums asked Commissioner Linda Sweezer to recuse herself from the hearing because he said the fact that she is an official of the church attended by Moffett could “cast some doubt, real or imagined, on her ability to be impartial.” She declined. A spokesman for the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office has said that the situation would not present a legal conflict of interest.

About 20 people attended the hearing, after which Chairman Joe Graham and attorneys agreed Cooper’s firing was not for political or religious reasons. Graham said that, therefore, the commission would consider only whether Cooper’s firing was “in good faith for cause.”

The commission’s rules allow it to rescind, modify or increase the penalties imposed on police and firefighters who appeal actions taken regarding their employment.

The city’s noise ordinance leaves to officers’ judgment what noise levels constitute violations.

In other matters, the commission:

Set a time of 1 p.m. Aug. 26 for an appeal hearing for Blake. The disciplinary action Blake has appealed stemmed from his handling of the situation discussed during Wednesday’s hearing on Cooper’s firing.

Approved a list presented by Moffett of seven prospective police officers who have passed a written examination and on whom background checks are being done. The commission gave Moffett approval to begin hiring from the list.