Former Tuckerman Police Chief Explains Sudden Exit

TUCKERMAN, Ark. – When former Tuckerman Police Chief David Dixon announced Monday that he was retiring after a dispute with the mayor, many reacted with support and many also expressed curiosity about the exact reason for the split.

The former chief wrote that he “cannot perform and will not work at a job where I am being chewed on for something I didn’t do, didn’t know about and didn’t amount to a hill of beans.”

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Dixon spoke to a reporter on Wednesday, May 15. Although he was hesitant to discuss the subject out of a desire to avoid drama, he did agree to explain more about what happened that made him decide to leave the city. As his Facebook post suggested, it stemmed from a disagreement with the mayor, Zack Graham, during the local Tuckerman Hometown Days festival.

“He wants to know everything that happens,” Dixon said. “And sometimes I don’t even know everything that happens. This was really simple. There was a carnival worker who struck a utility pole on private property near the Methodist church. Apparently, he felt like I should know it. My patrolman on duty handled it. No one was hurt and nothing was torn up but the utility pole. [The mayor] called me that night and said he wanted to know about it. [He] wanted to know why he was the last to know.”

However, Dixon said he was also unaware of the accident. He told the mayor that apparently, the mayor knew about it before he did. Dixon didn’t blame his patrol officer and seemed to believe the incident was minor enough not to have mattered. According to Dixon, the mayor disagreed.

“He said, ‘Monday morning, we’re going to fix this.’ And I said ‘Nah, I’m done.'”

The Monday meeting never happened and Dixon resigned at 8 PM on Sunday, he wrote the next day publicly on Facebook.

Graham told K8 News a version of events that lines up with Dixon’s, although the specific words used between the two weren’t quoted. Graham said he wished Dixon the best of luck.

Dixon was asked by the previous mayor to be the police chief. On the first two requests, he turned the job down, but he finally agreed when asked a third time. This was in December, 2022.

However, with a new mayor taking over, styles evidently clashed. Dixon described the problem as micromanaging. He said the incident over the weekend was a simple disagreement but described it as representing a broader issue.

“The mayor just wants to know every detail and I just don’t work that way,” Dixon said. “I feel like I have done the job long enough and I knew how to do it. If it was something bad, somebody had gotten murdered or a big arrest had been made, yes I would have told him. But like I said, I didn’t even know it.”

The now-retired police chief hopes to enjoy his retirement, this time without being asked to go back to work. However, Dixon also enjoys working in the community as Santa Claus, and with a laugh, said he plans to continue to do that job.

Meanwhile, the Tuckerman mayor said they are searching for a new police chief.

NEA Report made several more attempts to reach the Tuckerman mayor, who has still not responded to our original request for comment.