By Police1 Staff
BRISTOL, Tenn. — A Tennessee officer was fired after criticizing a department policy while on camera after pulling over a senator’s daughter.
WJHL reports that former officer Phil Kiersnowski pulled over Sam Lundberg for a window tint violation. During the traffic stop, Kiersnowski criticized his department’s window tinting enforcement policy and urged her to get her father, Sen. Jon Lundberg, involved. Kiersnowski also tried to mute his body camera microphone during the exchange.
“I am going to give you a citation, because that’s only because the admin’s on our a**,” Kiersnowski said. “One call from your dad would probably make all of this go away and probably save all of us a lot of heartache.”
Sen. Lundberg said he shoulders some of the blame in the officer’s firing. The senator said he was listening to the traffic stop while on the phone with his daughter. The senator said he didn’t hear anything Kiersnowski said when he was whispering.
Sen. Lundberg said he called the police chief, Blaine Wade, and made light of the fact that his daughter and wife received tickets on the same day. He added that he did not call the chief, who he considers a personal friend, to try and get his daughter out of the ticket.
The senator said he was invited to the department the next day, where he learned that the officer was terminated. A department memo said upon reviewing the video, Kiersnowski was fired for attempting to disable the audio from his camera, which “could be evidence and is also part of the official records of the police department.”
“Officer Kiersnowski was insubordinate with his attempt to persuade someone to take action to change police department policy that he does not agree with,” the memo said.
The senator said he regrets calling the chief and said that the officer was unjustly fired. He even hired an attorney for Kiersnowski to try and help get his job back.
Kiersnowski admits he should have handled the situation better, but he never thought he would lose his job over it. Kiersnowski appealed the decision, but the city upheld it.
Wade declined to comment further, saying the department doesn’t comment on personnel issues.