By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington Police Chief Brendan Heffner is defending his decision to fire Brenton VanHoveln.
Heffner told WJBC’s Susan Saunders that VanHoveln wrote 11 tickets in six separate incidents. Heffner said he looks forward to arbitration with VanHoveln.
“I think there will be a lot of things that come to light,” Heffner said. “We just want to focus on the facts.”
Heffner said that VanHoveln’s clean record prior to writing the fake tickets doesn’t matter.
“Once you have brought your integrity into question, it’s done,” Heffner said.
Heffner said the department handed over to the investigation to Illinois State Police once they found some potentially criminal actions during their internal investigation. VanHoveln was found not guilty of felony forgery charges last week.
For more on the upcoming arbitration process, click here for City Manager David Hales’ thoughts.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
