Fraternal Order of Police

Monongalia & Preston County Lodge #87, Inc.

P. O. Box 1410, Morgantown, WV 26507-1410

On March 6, 2024, the members of the Monongalia and Preston County Lodge #87 of the Fraternal
Order of Police took a vote of “No Confidence” regarding Morgantown Police Chief Eric Powell. Lodge
87 has approximately 150 members of current and former law enforcement officers from most local law
enforcement agencies and some federal agencies working and residing in Monongalia and Preston Counties.

The lack of confidence in Chief Powell by the Law Enforcement community is a long-standing issue
that has come to a vote following public comments made by Chief Powell in his meeting with the
Morgantown Citizen Police Review and Advisory Board on February 29, 2024. Chief Powell has an
established history of failing to serve the citizens of Morgantown and failing to support the men and women
of the Morgantown Police Department.

Chief Powell was appointed as Deputy Chief in August 2017 by then Chief Edward Preston.
Following Chief Preston’s retirement in 2020, Chief Powell was appointed as Interim Chief. He was then
appointed Chief of Police in April 2021. For more than six years, Chief Powell has been in the highest
positions within the Police Department. During that time, he has not enacted or influenced any major policy
changes within the Department. He has distanced himself from both the citizens and the Police Department
by not participating in neighborhood events and meetings, failing to attend strategy meetings with other
organizations, and spending most of his day absent from the Department.

Chief Powell’s comments to the Review Board exemplify how out of touch and unprepared to lead
he is. One of the issues raised in the “Case Study” was an apparent over-response of officers for a “simple
trespassing” involving one unarmed woman. The Review Board questioned why five officers were
necessary to handle one harmless individual for a minor situation. Had Chief Powell been aware of his own
Department’s policies and activities, he could have prepared an informed answer regarding the facts of the
incident.
1. The call for service was for three people on private property who were refusing to leave after having
been asked three times.
2. Of the responding officers, two of them were newer officers actively being trained by Field Training
Officers. This caused there to be two officers present strictly for training and observation.
3. Two of the people left the property when directed to do so by responding officers. This left three
officers trying to get the increasingly uncooperative third person to leave the property.

Instead of using the meeting with the Review Board to achieve the stated goal of helping the public
understand police procedures, Chief Powell displayed his habitual lack of preparation and lack of
knowledge of his own Department. He shined a spotlight on what he called a “bullying mentality” that has
become institutionalized while he has overseen the Department, but he never addressed it with his officers
through discipline, policy changes, or training.

Chief Eric Powell is a poor leader, and he has lost the confidence of the men and women in the
Monongalia and Preston County Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. The City of Morgantown is
suffering from a litany of issues, notably illicit drugs, drug-related violence, and the unhoused population.
Members of Lodge 87 believe Chief Powell is too out of touch with his officers, the citizens, and the
community as a whole to make any meaningful improvements. It is time to revive the City of Morgantown,
and it needs to start with a change in leadership.

To contact President Brandon Viola or Vice-President Matthew Starsick, send emails to:
fopwvlodge87@gmail.com.

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