A seven-year veteran of the Raleigh Police force, Eric Tansey, who was Raleigh PD’s officer of the year in 2017, has been fired for owning InStill Distillery. According to a video uploaded last night, he started the distillery 3 years ago with two other people, one of whom is a military veteran, and one is still active duty. He had the department know what was going on from the beginning. When they came to take his gun and badge, they even searched his car, according to Tansey.
Politics Elections reached out to Tansey and he expressed frustration with the process, saying that, “they crossed the boundaries by searching my car” and he “doesn’t understand the motive.”
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According to Tansey, “They are hemorrhaging officers and they are being treated poorly.” There has been a lot of tension in the city regarding a local Confederate monument. He said that he, “doesn’t need the publicity, you just can’t treat people that way.”
The local Raleigh Police Protective Agency says they, “support Tansey 100%” and “believe that the department’s administration should be held to the same standard.” Politics Elections reached out in a phone call to the department for comment, but the call was transferred to the public relations officer, Donna Maria-Harris’, voicemail.
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A local report found information in the employee handbook where it states that as of July of last year, an employee may not have any employment involving the sale or handling of alcohol, but Tansey said in the Facebook post he is “simply an owner of the distillery.”
In January, Tansey appeared on a podcast to talk about his new business and his work as a police officer. During that interview, he describes how he has never hit a woman, despite being chased by one larger than him, how he had to witness a woman pooping in front of him on his first day, and about how he had to get into a one on one fight during a traffic stop in front of his mom that sent him to the hospital.
This marks a disturbing trend after an eerily similar story covered recently near Ashville, North Carolina, (Brevard City) where two hero firefighters known by locals for saving the life of a car crash victim were let go simply for criticizing a city manager for wearing a mismatched military uniform. Other news outlets eventually picked up that story without crediting Politics Elections for breaking it.