When NC cop drove drunk on the job, his councilman father pushed to have him promoted
A veteran Pineville Town Council member, who was censured last month for improperly meddling in police department affairs, intervened repeatedly to help his officer son, The Charlotte Observer has learned.
According to an Oct. 11 investigative report released by the Town of Pineville, council member Les Gladden used his elected position to advance and protect the career of an individual identified only as “Officer 1.”
Based on personnel records and police department interviews, the Observer has confirmed that Officer 1 actually is Ryan Gladden, an eight-year Pineville police veteran who resigned Sept. 13, a month before the Town Council voted to censure his father.
Les Gladden pressured Pineville police to hire his son in 2013 despite his history of prescription-drug abuse. When Ryan Gladden drove drunk while on duty last year, the council member insisted that his son be promoted, the report and Observer interviews reveal.
Ryan Gladden’s disciplinary records reveal that his last 18 months as a police officer in Pineville, a south Mecklenburg town of about 11,000, were tumultuous ones.
On March 17, 2021, for example, he was suspended from the police department’s SWAT team and put on a year’s probation. Gladden’s disciplinary files, which the Observer obtained through a public records request, do not say why.
But according to the town’s investigative report, which was released the night of Les Gladden’s censure vote, March 17, 2021 also was the day that an on-duty “Officer 1” attended a SWAT demonstration “while under the influence of and actively consuming alcohol.”
“He blew at least a 2.0 on his partner’s alcosensor,” the report states. “He also drove his police cruiser in this condition.”
In an email to the Observer this week, Pineville Police Chief Michael Hudgins confirmed that Ryan Gladden — who did not respond to an Observer phone call Tuesday seeking comment — was the only Pineville officer disciplined on that date.
Ignoring what appears to be a blatant conflict of interest, Les Gladden, who is currently serving his ninth term on the council, injected himself fully into the decision of how his son’s case was to be handled.
According to the October report, which followed an investigation by the security and management consulting firm US ISS Agency LLC, the elder Gladden requested multiple meetings with Pineville Town Manager Ryan Spitzer and other town staff to discuss his son’s situation.
The council member not only lobbied for Ryan Gladden to keep his job but also argued that his son be promoted, the report claims. In fact, according to the report, Les Gladden was “upset that a superior officer would not waive policy to promote Officer 1 at the first opportunity.”
Behind the scenes, according to the report’s findings, Les Gladden “fostered a pervasive fear of retaliation” that enveloped the police department.
He threatened or intimidated other Pineville officers, warning some that he was maneuvering to have Ryan Gladden’s superior officer terminated.
He accused the superior officer of turning some officers against his son, and pressured one policeman to “bring dirt to the Town Manager” to get the superior fired. He told another cop that the the superior officer “was going down” and that other department personnel would be forced out as well.
Hudgins, who became Pineville police chief on Dec. 30, 2020, acknowledged to the Observer that he is the “superior officer” identified in the report.
As punishment for his drinking on duty, Ryan Gladden eventually was demoted from corporal to officer for three months and suspended without pay for two weeks, along with his earlier suspension from the SWAT team and his year-long probation, records show and Hudgins confirmed.
Hudgins, who formerly worked for the Newport News (Va.) police, said the Pineville Town Council decided Ryan Gladden’s punishment, which the report describes as being “much more lenient than (Hudgins) initially recommended.”
During a Monday phone interview with the Observer, Hudgins declined to say what his disciplinary recommendation had been.
Les Gladden did not respond to an Observer phone call Tuesday or a detailed email on Monday seeking information about his dealings with the police department and his son.
Drug abuse
How Les Gladden, who was first elected to the council in 1999, held such sway over police affairs in Pineville for so long is not addressed by the report.
Neither Pineville Mayor Jack Edwards nor Spitzer, the town manager, responded to Observer emails that included questions about the city and council’s apparent failure of oversight and whether it jeopardized public safety.
Les Gladden’s behind-the-scenes involvement in his son’s career dates back to at least 2013 when Ryan Gladden was hired as a Pineville police officer on his second try.
He got the job based on “direct intervention by Councilman Gladden with the previous superior officer,” according to the ISS report. The former superior officer, believed to be former Police Chief Rob Merchant, “acknowledged he received pressure” to make the hire, according to the report.
Les Gladden pushed the job through despite being aware of his son’s “previous issues” with prescription-drug abuse, the report says.
Eight years later, when Ryan Gladden’s punishment for drinking on duty was handed down, other police officers interviewed by ISS spoke of how Les Gladden had interfered in the handling of the incident, and that any officer guilty of such behavior should be fired.
Ryan Gladden, they said, had received “special treatment.”
Censure
The council’s unanimous censure resolution on Oct. 11 sharply limited Les Gladden’s power over police and town affairs for the foreseeable future.
▪ It prohibits Gladden from entering the police station without Spitzer’s supervision. If Gladden violates the order, he will be considered trespassing.
▪ It also prevents him from “using language and verbal communication in public that disparages the Police Chief and Police Officers of the Town of Pineville.”
▪ It restricts him from meeting with town department heads without Spitzer’s supervision.
▪ He is also banned from from communicating with any town employee except the town manager, or taking any action that could be interpreted as attempting to interfere with personnel matters.
“None of this is taken lightly,” Edwards, the mayor, said at the Oct. 11 meeting.
The censure went into effect immediately and continues through the end of Gladden’s term in 2023.
If he violates the terms, the council will attempt to remove him from office, the censure states.
The censure says the “highest and best corrective” for elected officials is the ballot box, but “in some instances behavior is so egregious that a response is needed and deserved by the public.”
Will Wright contributed.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misidentified the former Pineville police chief who hired Ryan Gladden. He is Rob Merchant.
This story was originally published November 16, 2022 at 1:38 PM.
