A few hours later, Mr. Murphy left voice-mail and sent e-mail to Chief Chambers issuing an apparently illegal gag order, ordering her to not speak to the media on any topic, anymore. He also told her to attend a meeting with him and Director Mainella later that week, to discuss "general United States Park Police issues."
After several days of getting rather strange looks and responses from her colleagues, Chief Chambers arrived in the headquarters of the National Park Service with her Assistant Chief. Mr. Murphy greeted them, then entered his office. Three armed agents and an attorney arrived; the attorney and one of the agents entered Murphy's office; the other two agents flanked the door, to stand guard. Chief Chambers was summoned in; her Assistant Chief was told to remain outside.
Director Mainella was nowhere to be seen. Murphy said she would not be coming and Chambers couldn't see her. He then handed Chief Chambers a memo: With absolutely no forewarning -- with no chance to bring an attorney of her own -- and with no specific charges leveled against her, Chief Chambers was told that she was being put on indefinite administrative leave.
On December 5, 2003 ? 25 years to the day since she had first received a badge, with the Prince George's County Police ? Teresa Chambers was stripped of her gun and her badge, as Chief of the U.S. Park Police.
Then ? like some disgraced law enforcement officer accused of a crime ? she was paraded by the armed special NPS agents in front of her colleagues and in front of the media back to her office, where she turned in her communications devices but from which she had been told by Murphy there would be no need to take her personal belongings (which she would not be allowed to retrieve until many months later).
She was left to find her own way home, in uniform and unarmed but by now well known: She might as well have had a target painted on her back.
One week later, legal representatives of the NPS met Chambers in "a secret location" to offer her a deal: If she would agree to let Deputy Director Murphy screen all her contacts with the media and the Congress from then on, and if she would transfer another outspoken colleague, the charges against her ? still unspecified ? would be dropped. But because to "cooperate" would have meant gutting the independence and power of her office as Chief, by accepting what she felt to be illegal restrictions on her First Amendment right to free speech and her right to contact Congress, as well as committing the undoubtedly illegal act of transferring another whistleblower, Chief Chambers refused the deal in no uncertain terms.
As Jeff Ruch, Executive Director of PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), a respected organization now part of the Chambers defense team, put it, "One day Don Murphy says these allegations are so serious that termination is the only recourse while he was really saying that all would be forgiven if Teresa Chambers would agree to kiss his ring."
Within a week, Chief Chambers received a letter from the NPS informing her of their intent to remove her from federal service and (for the first time) detailing six formal charges against her.
What may well be six of the most trumped-up charges ever to be filed. In a later deposition, even Murphy himself could not cite specific rules or laws that applied to many of the alleged violations; and in those few instances where he could quote chapter and verse from federal regulations, it was a stretch to say the least to make them fit the facts of this case.
By most independent accounts, Ms. Chambers as Chief did nothing improper, nothing that others in her position had not done; indeed, Mr. Murphy and Ms. Mainella were apparently "guilty" of two of the alleged offenses themselves: speaking to the press about the funding shortfalls of the NPS and publicly mentioning how many U.S. Park Police officers were stationed at certain national monuments.
But the legal battle had begun. Two of the charges were thrown out by the administrative judge in an initial hearing before the Merit Systems Protection Board, an appeals panel for the personnel issues of federal employees; but as of today ? two years after being "ambushed" out of service (during which time a new chief has been named) ? four of the charges still hang over her head, there being no timeframe specified for a response from the MSPB to her formal appeal, after which, if charges remain, she and her supporters are prepared to fight on, in the federal court system.
And not simply on the defensive but also on the offensive: According to the Chambers legal team and most outside observers, the actions taken by the National Park Service constitute a blatant violation of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act, protecting employees who reasonably disclose "a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."
But apparently such "niceties" as keeping Lady Liberty and her visitors safe in New York Harbor are less important to this administration than seeing to it that any and all critics are silenced. And by tactics that are unethical at least, illegal at most. For example, a glowing performance review of Chief Chambers ? that had been written by none other than Deputy Director Murphy just before all the controversy arose ? was withheld for months by the NPS; then it mysteriously disappeared; and then, after denials by the NPS that it even existed in the first place, it just as mysteriously reappeared when the Chambers legal team filed suit in federal court. However, over nine months later, it has yet to be turned over!
If you are as outraged as I am by this egregious abuse of power ? attempting to destroy the reputation and livelihood of a dedicated public servant as well as compromising our homeland security (Subsequent reports have confirmed what Chief Chambers had warned, that the security for our much-treasured, much-visited national monuments is woefully inadequate) ? then I hope you will learn more about this case on the website created by Ms. Chambers' faithful husband, retired from law enforcement, http://www.honestchief.com. There you may read (or read of) the many news reports, including great series in the Washington Post and by Timothy Noah in MSN Slate; commentaries, as by CBS News' Bob Schieffer and the dean of television anchorpersons, Walter Cronkite; an audio library of her radio and television interviews across the country; lists of supporters, including senators and members of Congress; a petition you may sign, anonymously, with a comment of your own; and a link to the defense fund established by PEER to help cover her enormous (and growing) legal bills, taking on what at times must seem like the entire federal government.
In our correspondence for this article, I asked Ms. Chambers what she was doing now. She replied: "I'm here ... at the computer fighting my case every day. To keep the pressure on and to help assist my attorneys in their exceptional representation, my husband and I each spend an average of 12 and 16 hours a day working on this case. This is what we do ? this is our job."
After several days of getting rather strange looks and responses from her colleagues, Chief Chambers arrived in the headquarters of the National Park Service with her Assistant Chief. Mr. Murphy greeted them, then entered his office. Three armed agents and an attorney arrived; the attorney and one of the agents entered Murphy's office; the other two agents flanked the door, to stand guard. Chief Chambers was summoned in; her Assistant Chief was told to remain outside.
Director Mainella was nowhere to be seen. Murphy said she would not be coming and Chambers couldn't see her. He then handed Chief Chambers a memo: With absolutely no forewarning -- with no chance to bring an attorney of her own -- and with no specific charges leveled against her, Chief Chambers was told that she was being put on indefinite administrative leave.
On December 5, 2003 ? 25 years to the day since she had first received a badge, with the Prince George's County Police ? Teresa Chambers was stripped of her gun and her badge, as Chief of the U.S. Park Police.
She was left to find her own way home, in uniform and unarmed but by now well known: She might as well have had a target painted on her back.
One week later, legal representatives of the NPS met Chambers in "a secret location" to offer her a deal: If she would agree to let Deputy Director Murphy screen all her contacts with the media and the Congress from then on, and if she would transfer another outspoken colleague, the charges against her ? still unspecified ? would be dropped. But because to "cooperate" would have meant gutting the independence and power of her office as Chief, by accepting what she felt to be illegal restrictions on her First Amendment right to free speech and her right to contact Congress, as well as committing the undoubtedly illegal act of transferring another whistleblower, Chief Chambers refused the deal in no uncertain terms.
As Jeff Ruch, Executive Director of PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), a respected organization now part of the Chambers defense team, put it, "One day Don Murphy says these allegations are so serious that termination is the only recourse while he was really saying that all would be forgiven if Teresa Chambers would agree to kiss his ring."
Within a week, Chief Chambers received a letter from the NPS informing her of their intent to remove her from federal service and (for the first time) detailing six formal charges against her.
What may well be six of the most trumped-up charges ever to be filed. In a later deposition, even Murphy himself could not cite specific rules or laws that applied to many of the alleged violations; and in those few instances where he could quote chapter and verse from federal regulations, it was a stretch to say the least to make them fit the facts of this case.
By most independent accounts, Ms. Chambers as Chief did nothing improper, nothing that others in her position had not done; indeed, Mr. Murphy and Ms. Mainella were apparently "guilty" of two of the alleged offenses themselves: speaking to the press about the funding shortfalls of the NPS and publicly mentioning how many U.S. Park Police officers were stationed at certain national monuments.
But the legal battle had begun. Two of the charges were thrown out by the administrative judge in an initial hearing before the Merit Systems Protection Board, an appeals panel for the personnel issues of federal employees; but as of today ? two years after being "ambushed" out of service (during which time a new chief has been named) ? four of the charges still hang over her head, there being no timeframe specified for a response from the MSPB to her formal appeal, after which, if charges remain, she and her supporters are prepared to fight on, in the federal court system.
And not simply on the defensive but also on the offensive: According to the Chambers legal team and most outside observers, the actions taken by the National Park Service constitute a blatant violation of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act, protecting employees who reasonably disclose "a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."
But apparently such "niceties" as keeping Lady Liberty and her visitors safe in New York Harbor are less important to this administration than seeing to it that any and all critics are silenced. And by tactics that are unethical at least, illegal at most. For example, a glowing performance review of Chief Chambers ? that had been written by none other than Deputy Director Murphy just before all the controversy arose ? was withheld for months by the NPS; then it mysteriously disappeared; and then, after denials by the NPS that it even existed in the first place, it just as mysteriously reappeared when the Chambers legal team filed suit in federal court. However, over nine months later, it has yet to be turned over!
If you are as outraged as I am by this egregious abuse of power ? attempting to destroy the reputation and livelihood of a dedicated public servant as well as compromising our homeland security (Subsequent reports have confirmed what Chief Chambers had warned, that the security for our much-treasured, much-visited national monuments is woefully inadequate) ? then I hope you will learn more about this case on the website created by Ms. Chambers' faithful husband, retired from law enforcement, http://www.honestchief.com. There you may read (or read of) the many news reports, including great series in the Washington Post and by Timothy Noah in MSN Slate; commentaries, as by CBS News' Bob Schieffer and the dean of television anchorpersons, Walter Cronkite; an audio library of her radio and television interviews across the country; lists of supporters, including senators and members of Congress; a petition you may sign, anonymously, with a comment of your own; and a link to the defense fund established by PEER to help cover her enormous (and growing) legal bills, taking on what at times must seem like the entire federal government.
In our correspondence for this article, I asked Ms. Chambers what she was doing now. She replied: "I'm here ... at the computer fighting my case every day. To keep the pressure on and to help assist my attorneys in their exceptional representation, my husband and I each spend an average of 12 and 16 hours a day working on this case. This is what we do ? this is our job."
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