Say Cheese

With practice, former Lone Jack Police Chief Jeffery Jewell has become more creative at explaining his resignations.

Last week, after the Lone Jack city council paid him to go away one year and three months before his contract would expire, Jewell hinted to the media that the eastern Jackson County town simply couldn't afford his whopping $31,858-a-year salary anymore.

"Hopefully they'll find someone who'll work a little cheaper," Jewell told The Kansas City Star.

No kidding. Five lawsuits against Jewell's police department in the past two years stand to cost the city financially, and they've already cost the town its reputation.

The suits accuse Jewell of botching a murder investigation, mistreating juveniles, hampering an internal investigation, posting a pornographic photo on his office door, having sex in his office and gossiping with police officers about which local woman he would "slide into" next.

Jewell also attributed the city's buyout to "policy differences." Among Jewell's bizarre policies was his practice of impersonating a judge and meting out sentences to juveniles. A Missouri Highway Patrol report said that Jewell sentenced one teen-age girl to polish his shoes and nightstick. For Jewell's work as a judge, Jackson County Prosecutor Bob Beairdfiled fifteen misdemeanor charges last July but dropped the charges after Jewell promised to start processing youngsters through the real justice system.

Before being hired as Lone Jack's police chief when he was in his mid-twenties in 1994, Jewell was an officer with the Greenwood, Missouri, police department. He abruptly left the Greenwood force after a colleague snapped a photograph of him in his police uniform, grinning at the camera as a woman performed oral sex on him at a party.

He didn't try quite as hard to explain away that resignation as he has the Lone Jack departure. In a sworn deposition in one of the lawsuits, Jewell blamed his Greenwood resignation on "politics."