Council: Fired Ellsworth chief was likely drunk when reporting to work after shooting

Ellsworth’s former city manager and police chief likely was drunk when he reported to work after one of his officers shot a man in December, according to the city council.

The Bangor Daily News obtained the termination letter for Glenn Moshier on Tuesday under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act. Moshier was fired as police chief by a unanimous vote of the council on March 11.

The revelation why Moshier was fired closes a bumpy chapter in the city’s history that dates to when he was appointed to the dual role of city manager and police chief in 2021.

In the letter, the council said Moshier had told city officials that he had five beers between 5 and 9 p.m. on the night of Dec. 22, 2023 . He was off-duty at the time, according to the letter, and he was awoken later that evening when the department called to tell him that an Ellsworth officer shot a man who had allegedly fired a weapon at police when they tried to arrest him.

Moshier’s wife then drove him to Ellsworth, where they stopped at a convenience store and bought gum and iced tea before she dropped him off at the police station shortly before 11 p.m., according to the letter. Moshier brought his off-duty compact firearm with him when he reported to work.

“Several officers said they thought you were still under the influence of alcohol when you arrived at the station as you were acting uncharacteristically loud and emotional,” the council wrote in the termination letter, which was based on an internal investigation conducted by a firm called Edgewater Reliance, LLC.

“Given the amount of alcohol you admitted to consuming earlier in the evening, the timing of the incident, the fact that you chose not to drive and purchased items that may have been intended to disguise the effects of the alcohol, and the reports from officers, the Council finds that it is more likely than not that you were under the influence of alcohol when you arrived at the station,” the council said.

The council later determined that Moshier’s behavior violated four city policies. The investigation concluded that:

• Moshier likely was drunk when he reported to work after the shooting.
• He likely was drunk when he was carrying his off-duty firearm.
• He behaved unprofessionally in the way he reported to work and conducted himself at the police station.
• He did not file a timely report about the incident before being placed on leave as police chief on Dec. 28 .

Moshier did not immediately respond on Tuesday to a request for comment sent to his Facebook account. A working phone number for him could not be found.

Moshier was placed on leave as city manager on March 4 and has not been employed by the city since the end of last month. Charlie Pearce, Ellsworth’s new city manager , started in the job on April 1.

Moshier was appointed police chief in 2017, after the abrupt resignation of previous chief Harold Bickmore . He then retained the chief role when he also was appointed interim city manager in 2020, after David Cole retired from that position.

In early 2021, the council decided to offer Moshier the city manager position permanently, which he accepted on the condition that he also could keep his police chief title. The seven members of the council at the time — none of whom remain on the panel — unanimously agreed .

The decision was met with instant criticism from residents who said the two positions were each full-time posts, and that the city manager normally supervises the police chief. By holding both positions, Moshier essentially would be supervising himself, they said.

There were few public complaints about how Moshier fulfilled his dual role — though he was criticized for failing to tell the council about a cruiser crash he caused, and the city’s former planner was sharply critical of Moshier in her resignation letter .

But residents continued to question the wisdom of having Moshier serve as both police chief and city manager. The persistent critiques led Moshier to decide last summer not to seek re-appointment as manager when his contract for that position expired in January of this year. But Moshier made it clear he planned to stay on as police chief.

The city then began a search for a new city manager but, because it had not yet made a job offer to Pearce, in January it extended Moshier’s manager contract — even though he already had been placed on leave as police chief.

At the same meeting when the council extended Moshier’s city manager contract, it also presented him with a recognition of his 20 years with the police department.

Less than two months later, the council met behind closed doors with Moshier and then, after returning to public session, voted to suspend him as city manager. Moshier immediately collected his personal belongings from City Hall and left.

The following week, without Moshier in attendance, the council voted to fire Moshier as police chief. Troy Bires, the deputy chief who has overseen the department’s day-to-day operations since Moshier was appointed interim city manager four years ago, now leads the department as interim chief.