The attorney for suspended Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler after a series of profane rants involving machine guns accused a local city council member on Tuesday of trying to stack the deck against his client the day he was sanctioned.
"We were under the full assumption and belief that Chief Kessler had the support of his mayor and that he would have a fair hearing that day when they met in executive session," attorney Joseph P. Nahas told the Pottsville Republican Herald. "We didn't know it was going to be a kangaroo court."
Nahas told the newspaper that three Gilberton, Pennsylvania residents reported being visited by council member Eric Boxer, then produced the residents to local media to verify his account. None of the residents said they supported the July 31 decision to suspend Kessler in a 5-1 vote.
"I think he's a great cop," one resident, Margaret Dean, told reporters. "We have troubles down there and when we call, he always comes right over. I think all this is about is [the council] just want a part-time policeman."
Kessler was suspended after posting videos online in which he shot machine guns while ranting about "libtards," and accused Boxer and other council members of setting him up to be fired immediately after his suspension. He also called one reporter a "communist c*cksucker" for reporting on the videos and insulted callers who questioned him on his radio show on July 29.
Nahas told the Republican Herald on Tuesday that his client is working on complying with an August 1 request from the city to both remove references to it in his videos and take down any clips of him in uniform.
"I've served my community for a very long time," Kessler told reporters in a brief statement. "Unfortunately, people painted me out to be a whatever you want to call it. I have a family, a wife, seven children and two grandchildren. I'm not a demon. I'm not a lunatic."
[Image via WFMZ-TV]
