Departing Pulaski Police Chief offers thoughts on tenure

By WILLIAM PAINE

Patriot Publishing

Saturday, May 31 marked the last day of Samuel Shumate’s tenure as the Police Chief of the Town of Pulaski. Shumate submitted his resignation to town leadership on May 6, after only having served as chief since taking the oath of office on Jan. 1, 2024.

Chief Shumate offered to share the reasons for his unexpected departure in an interview given on Friday, May 30, the penultimate day of his tenure as chief.

Community engagement was a high priority for Shumate when he assumed the role of Pulaski’s top law enforcement officer early last year.

“I wanted to come up here and I wanted to change the perception of the Pulaski Police Department, and I wanted the get the Pulaski Police Department known throughout the nation as a top tier police department,” said Shumate. “When I came in my focus was wanting to get the police department back engaged with the community. More people out of cars talking with the community members. You always try and lead by examples and so that’s what I always tried to do. I’d check on businesses to see how things were going and what we could do to help them if there’s any problems and stuff like that. I think that perception was a misconception of how things really are here.”

As the interview progressed, it became clear that Shumate was not particularly unhappy with his duties as chief, nor did he express any dissatisfaction with town leadership or with members of the police force.

So why quit after only taking the job less than a year and a half earlier?

“I was always told one day you’ll wake up and know it’s time to go and I woke up one day and I said, ‘it’s time,’” Shumate responded. “My intentions when I first came here weren’t to be this short tenure, but talking with my financial advisor and stuff like that, I was basically working for free and with my home stuff it was just better suited for me to retire.”

Working for free?

“Well, basically, what would be my retirement check with the Virginia Retirement System, the hazardous duty supplement and basically, I’d be making about what I make now,” said Shumate. “It’s not always about money. People think that it’s about money, but when you come into the chief’s job and you have all this liability that falls on you if the officers go out and do something that’s wrong … You take that all into account. You look at your salary and then you look at your retirement check and you say, well, I’m basically working for free.”

Chief Shumate’s retirement invited much conjecture on social media sites, with some surmising that Shumate took the job, with its higher salary to increase the pay out on his retirement plan. Shumate was serving as Assistant Police Chief at Radford University when he took the job.

“No, it was not a factor and my retirement pay was equaling out to be exactly what it was as when I was assistant chief,” said Shumate. “People talking about that are 100 percent incorrect. That’s where people …  they haven’t educated their selves to know what they’re talking about.”

Shumate’s letter of resignation specifically mentioned “living requirements and stipulations,” as issues related to his retirement. According to current policy, the Pulaski Police Chief is required to establish residency in the Town within the first year of his employment. A year after taking the job, Shumate was granted an additional 3 months to establish residency in Pulaski, but that never happened.

So, residency was a major factor in this decision?

“I’m not going to say it was a major issue for me,” Shumate responded. “When I was looking for a house in Pulaski, with the housing market as it is now, I just didn’t think what was on the market that was in my price range was the best value. Compared to where I reside now, there wasn’t a comparison there. I’m on eight acres right now and have a 4,500-square foot house that I paid $250,000 for, and I got a son who is starting high school this year and he had been going to the Auburn schools for years. We felt like it would be a backslide and there’s not a job out there that’s more important to me than my family and being there for my family.”

These same factors were present when Shumate accepted the Chief’s position in Jan. 2024, so why take the job?

“When I took the job, I knew I was supposed to move up here and then I was going to move up here,” Shumate responded. “But circumstances changed with my life and my wife getting some promotions and she didn’t want to drive from Pulaski every day. I was intending to move here then my circumstances changed. Everybody’s circumstances change. I was still looking for a house in the final months, but the market wasn’t right and I wasn’t going to live separate from my wife.”

After a pause, Shumate who spent 15 years in the military and 26 years in law enforcement added this…

“You know I’ve done a lot of service in the police force and the military with military deployments and that’s a lot of time away from family,” Shumate admitted. “I have two older kids that I missed a lot of their events and I’m just not willing to do that with my youngest.  I regret it with my older two and I am going to try and learn from my mistakes. I came in wanting my tenure to be longer, but the good Lord had a plan and I’ll follow his plan on what he wants done.”

According to Shumate, crime is no worse in Pulaski than most any other small town in America, adding that, “I have confidence that Mr. (Todd) Day [town manager] and council will pick whoever the best applicant is to be the next chief of police. I hope in the short tenure I had here that I helped the Town out … that I helped the police department out.”

Shumate will turn 52 this year. What are his plans?

“I’ve talked with my financial advisor and looked at my portfolios,” Shumate responded. “I might do a part time job here or there just to stay busy, but I don’t really have to work at all if I don’t want to. So, I don’t have any plans right now other than to just retire and take some time off and to really decide what I want to do.”