{"id":83198,"date":"2025-05-08T00:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T00:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/83198\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T00:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T00:22:08","slug":"heated-exchange-at-london-city-council-meeting-caught-on-body-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/83198\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated exchange at London City Council meeting caught on body camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LONDON, Ky. (WYMT) &#8211; A routine item on the agenda for Monday night\u2019s London City Council meeting turned into a tense exchange that is now drawing attention, after body camera footage of the incident began circulating on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/r\/15JJKXme94\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The video, captured by a London City Police Department body camera, shows a heated argument between Councilwoman Kelly Smith Greene and London Fire Chief Donnie Hale. A portion of the footage was posted to the \u201cI Support Mayor Randall Weddle\u201d Facebook page, where it has now been viewed nearly 90,000 times. WYMT obtained the full hour and 45-minute recording through an open records request.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Chief Hale told WYMT he noticed the \u201cFire Department Discussion\u201d listed on the meeting agenda early Monday morning and emailed all council members at 8:15 a.m. to find out what the item referred to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI got two responses, one from Councilman Ortega, and he stated that he knew nothing about it,\u201d Hale said. \u201cAnd the other one from Councilman Benge, who stated that he had replied through our city clerk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Councilwoman Greene, who later led the questioning during the meeting, did not respond to Hale\u2019s email.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Following the meeting, the argument continued and escalated, captured clearly on the body camera footage. In one exchange, Greene accuses Hale of being politically motivated, while Hale defends his department\u2019s role and questions Greene\u2019s accusations. The following is a small portion of their interaction, beginning with Hale speaking and ending with Greene speaking:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cYou\u2019re just a bald-faced liar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cNo, I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cYes, you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cNo, I\u2019m not. You\u2019ve gotten involved with politics when you should\u2019ve done your job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAre you saying I\u2019m not doing my job?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201dWell, I wonder about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mayor Randall Weddle, who was repeatedly referenced in the confrontation, said he believes the conflict reflects a broader issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhen the department heads are asking council members to engage with them via email and they wait to get on camera to start to try to break that department or act as if that department\u2019s doing something wrong instead of talking things out or looking for facts, that\u2019s where the irritation comes from,\u201d Weddle said on a phone call with WYMT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The mayor also said that a proposed ordinance aimed at increasing accountability among council members was tabled earlier this year until July. He acknowledged that the city\u2019s current ethics ordinance does not address this type of behavior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI wish there was accountability,\u201d Weddle said. \u201cI wish there would be a lot more that could be done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Despite the back-and-forth, Chief Hale said his department\u2019s priorities remain unchanged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are 100% for the citizens of London,\u201d Hale said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure that they are taken care of one way or the other. Their safety is number one to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mayor Weddle echoed that sentiment, saying the incident does not reflect the values of the broader community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI don\u2019t want people outside of London to think that\u2019s who we are as a community because that\u2019s not who we are,\u201d he said. \u201cLondon is moving forward. We are building a strong city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WYMT made multiple attempts to contact Councilwoman Greene for comment but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mayor Weddle also confirmed that it is standard procedure for body camera footage from council meetings to be obtained after each meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WYMT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, Ky. (WYMT) &#8211; A routine item on the agenda for Monday night\u2019s London City Council meeting turned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[40180,40179,748,11512,40175,40171,393,4884,40176,40173,40172,257,40177,40178,12,40174,16,15,24940],"class_list":{"0":"post-83198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-body-cam-footage","9":"tag-body-camera","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-city-of-london","12":"tag-donnie-hale","13":"tag-eky","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-kelly-smith-greene","17":"tag-laurel-co","18":"tag-laurel-county","19":"tag-london","20":"tag-london-city-council","21":"tag-london-police","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-randall-weddle","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-wymt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114469361805477553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}