A Vicksburg police officer suspended indefinitely without pay has eight more days to appeal to the civil service commission.

“If he appeals, we are obligated to investigate and make a finding,” said commission chairman Joe Graham.

Patrolman Anthony Stevens was suspended without pay Monday by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen pending an investigation into a resident’s complaint.

Any appeal must be filed within 10 days of the suspension, but no appeal had been made as of this morning, Graham said.

City officials offered little explanation for the suspension, other than to say it stemmed from a resident’s complaint.

“It’s pending an investigation, and we just basically started the process today,” Chief Walter Armstrong said Tuesday.

Stevens worked on the same shift as L’Jamarro Peters and Shawn White, who resigned from VPD earlier this year after a bail bonds scandal, but Armstrong said Stevens is “absolutely not” connected to activity by the two former officers.

Stevens’ mother, who answered the phone at his home Tuesday afternoon, said she did not know if her son had an attorney or planned to appeal to the civil service commission.

The three-member commission handles appeals from fired or suspended officers and firefighters, but most are unaware of their right to appeal, Graham said.

“Very few of the appellants knew until after they talked to an attorney that they had an appeal,” Graham said.

The caseload of the civil service commission varies year to year, Graham said.

“It comes like bananas in bunches. Generally speaking, we have a very busy first part of the city administration, and generally speaking, we have a very slow part of the tail end of the administration,” Graham said.

The end of the current administration is summer 2013.