A former Mount Hope police officer's certification was not revoked after he was charged with domestic battery. The case didn't go that far, because he made an illegal agreement with the Mason County prosecutor that meant his charges would be dropped, according to the Fayette County prosecutor and the current Mount Hope police chief.
The officer, Bill Gritt, also recently notified the state's law enforcement training and certification program that he is interested in again pursuing police work.
Gritt, 40, of Leon, was charged with domestic battery in March of 2014, according to a criminal complaint filed in Mason County Magistrate Court. He allegedly grabbed a juvenile girl by the hair and dragged her from a bedroom into a living room after she stood in front of him to keep him from hitting her mother, the complaint says.
Gritt entered into a pre-trial diversion agreement with Mason County Prosecuting Attorney Craig Tatterson, requiring him to attend community corrections and batterers intervention classes and placing him on unsupervised probation, said Fayette County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Harrah. Pre-trial diversion agreements are illegal in cases of domestic violence, Harrah noted. Some domestic violence victim advocates refer to them as "slaps on the wrist."
Tatterson did not return calls.
Harrah said that once he found out about the agreement, he refused to allow Gritt to serve as a witness, which in turn led to the officer's separation from the police department.
Harrah said that he was unable to fire Gritt, because he was an employee of the town of Mount Hope.
"I didn't fire him," he said. "I can't fire him. He's not my employee."
Harrah described the separation from the department, which was on March 10, as the decision of the current police chief Mark Larkin and the mayor, while Larkin described it as a resignation.
Larkin said Gritt started working for the Mount Hope Police Department April 5, 2013.
Larkin started as interim chief on Jan. 10, 2015, several months after the alleged domestic battery.
Thomas Peal was the chief while Gritt entered into the pre-trial diversion agreement.
"It would not have happened if I had been (chief)," Larkin said.
Larkin said he would have to go back and review case files to determine what effect an alleged history of domestic battery might have had on Gritt's work.
"I don't think he made any arrests for domestic battery," Larkin said. "I'm not sure."
Neither Larkin nor Harrah knew if Gritt was currently working in law enforcement.
But Lawrence Messina, spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said that while the agency doesn't believe Gritt is currently working as a police officer, within the last two weeks, Gritt has approached the Law Enforcement Professional Standards Program about re-activating his inactive certification.
The Law Enforcement Professional Standards Program is responsible for the training and certification of officers in West Virginia.
Messina explained that law enforcement certification automatically becomes inactive when a police officer leaves a police department.
"I just know the bottom line is, absent a conviction, his status is inactive as opposed to revoked," Messina said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@ wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.