Perry County, Ark., Sheriff Scott Montgomery told the AP he did not know Payne had been decertified in Georgia before hiring him in 2011. He said he asked the Georgia State Patrol why Payne was fired but was told only that he wasn’t eligible for re-hire. Montgomery ultimately fired Payne for failing to follow an order to stop associating with a woman separated from her husband after the husband complained.
The AP sent written questions to an address associated with Payne but did not receive any response; several listed phone numbers did not work. Payne’s certification to work in Arkansas law enforcement was scheduled to lapse in late October, at which point he would have to request a reinstatement. The state police standards agency said he is not currently employed as an officer.
There have been calls since 1996 to require states to log the names of decertified officers into a national database. As recently as May, a White House task force on policing — formed after police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere — recommended that the U.S. Justice Department partner with the group that maintains the index to expand it to all states.
Beyond its voluntary nature, the index also contains only limited information: an officer’s name, agency, date of decertification and a basic reason for the license revocation.