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HAWKINS \u2013 In their regular city council meeting on Monday, the Hawkins City Council voted to terminate the employment of Hawkins Police Department Lieutenant Eric Tuma.<\/p>\nHAWKINS \u2013 In their regular city council meeting on Monday, the Hawkins City Council voted to terminate the employment of Hawkins Police Department Lieutenant Eric Tuma.<\/p>\n
According to our news partner KETK, Tuma\u2019s termination was based on the grounds of \u201cDereliction of Sworn Duties\u201d and \u201cAbandonment of Post.\u201d The motion to terminate Tuma\u2019s employment was passed in a 3-2 vote. Tuma became the only officer in Hawkins PD after Hawkins Mayor Debbie Rushing fired three other officers on Feb. 18. Tuma, a Hawkins native, formerly served as the interim chief of Hawkins PD after the resignation of former chief Guy McKee in 2024.<\/p>\n
Hawkins is located in Wood County, so the Wood County Sheriff\u2019s Office is still available to respond to the needs of residents.<\/p>\n
City council member Eric Maloy voted against the motion and said he was distraught by Tuma\u2019s termination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very distraught and can\u2019t believe it,\u201d Maloy said. \u201cThey want our police back. They miss them. The community, the citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are excited to write policies and pass policies that follow the law of the state of Texas and that everyone has to go by that law,\u201d Rushing said.<\/p>\n
Hawkins community member Amy Pack is worried about what response times will be like without Tuma.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have any kind of safe community without law enforcement or a body of law,\u201d Pack said. \u201cThey\u2019re looking at least a 30-45 minute response time just because of the county and if they\u2019re busy, it\u2019s going to be even longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HAWKINS \u2013 In their regular city council meeting on Monday, the Hawkins City Council voted to terminate the employment of Hawkins Police Department Lieutenant Eric Tuma. According to our news partner KETK, Tuma\u2019s termination was based on the grounds of \u201cDereliction of Sworn Duties\u201d and \u201cAbandonment of Post.\u201d The motion to terminate Tuma\u2019s employment was … Continue reading Last remaining Hawkins Police officer fired<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1420006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/06\/2025-06-17_031736-1-198x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1419022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-08 23:37:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/06\/2025-06-17_031736-1-198x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1419022"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1420075,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419022\/revisions\/1420075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1419022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1419022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1419022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}