Document Outlines City's Reasons for Controversial Grounsell Firing

Conflict with assistant police chief Colleen O'Neil and the alleged inability or refusal to work with city officials are supposedly behind last week's firing of Simpsonville Police Chief Keith Grounsell.

A termination action document obtained by Greenville News indicated that an EEOC complaint by O'Neil placed legal restrictions on the city that in turn placed restrictions on Grounsell's ability to realign the department. 

Grounsell “took great exception to the city’s direction that limitations had to be in place limiting his ability to realign the PD, at least temporarily, due to the EEOC charge filed by Assistant Chief O’Neil,” according to the document.

Grounsell beat out O'Neil for the chief's position in late August and conflict between the two had led to a serious morale problem, according to the document. He was fired last week in a 5-2 vote by City Council.

Grounsell, who is pursuing possible legal action against the city, has said he has been directed by his attorney not to comment any further to the media.

"The document also alleges that Grounsell accused the city administrator of being in a conspiracy, demonstrated a belief he should have 'absolute management authority' and that he had discussed the details of a human resources meeting that he earlier had agreed to keep confidential. The document also alleges that Grounsell failed to tell City Council that he wasn’t a certified officer," the news report said.

“The chief of police, as with every department head, must demonstrate an ability to work with the City Council, the city administrator and the HR director,” according to the termination action document released by the city. “Chief Grounsell has made it clear he will not or cannot work with any of them.”

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