![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/06\/CityofHawkins-203x200.jpg\")
HAWKINS —\u00a0The Hawkins City Council voted to remove their last city police officer on Monday night but residents said they don\u2019t agree with the council\u2019s decision and are nervous to be left without coverage. According to our news partner KETK, many people have openly opposed the decision, including resident and former Hawkins city councilwoman Eleta Taylor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am extremely disappointed in this council,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThat decision just opened us up so vulnerably because we\u2019re not going to have no protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said several people have expressed their concern to her. After the council meeting ended Monday night, several people told KETK News that they are both scared and disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cGut-wrenching fear for what is going to happen,\u201d community member Amy Pack said.<\/p>\n
Pack said she wants to know how this will affect their town\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have any kind of safe community without a law enforcement or a body of law,\u201d Pack said.<\/p>\n
The Wood County Sheriff\u2019s Office was unavailable for comment on Tuesday on how this might affect their department or patrols, but Mayor Debbie Rushing told KETK News over the phone that this shouldn\u2019t have a big impact on them and should be business as usual.<\/p>\n
Rushing said this shouldn\u2019t affect the sheriff\u2019s office because Hawkins has never had a full-time police department. She also added that county\u2019s coverage will have no additional cost for the city of Hawkins.<\/p>\n
Although people living in the area are concerned, many said they are thankful for the county\u2019s coverage from the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate everything that the Wood County sheriff\u2019s department, the constables have done to help with us since we only had one officer,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HAWKINS —\u00a0The Hawkins City Council voted to remove their last city police officer on Monday night but residents said they don\u2019t agree with the council\u2019s decision and are nervous to be left without coverage. According to our news partner KETK, many people have openly opposed the decision, including resident and former Hawkins city councilwoman Eleta … Continue reading Hawkins residents raise concerns after last police officer fired<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1420369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/06\/CityofHawkins-203x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1420136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 00:41:12","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\/CityofHawkins-203x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420136","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\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1420136"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1420384,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420136\/revisions\/1420384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1420136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1420136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1420136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}