COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — College Park is spending $320,000 to settle a lawsuit with their new police chief.
The lawsuit comes after their former chief left in the middle of the night, Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes reports.
The new chief’s attorney told me it took months to come to that settlement agreement.
Now, Sharis McCrary is the leader of the department.
“This is closed door decision with an open-ended price tag,” said long-time resident James Walker.
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Walker is criticizing the way officials went about hiring McCrary.
The City Council voted to settle the lawsuit with the new chief for $320,000. As part of the settlement, she agreed to drop the lawsuit that claimed discrimination and retaliation when they didn’t hire her as police chief in 2022.
“This is not about the chief of police. I think she’s an excellent chief, a good officer. This is about the city of College Park,” Walker said.
In McCrary’s 2022 EEOC complaint, she says she was passed over for the interim chief position when she should have been named to that position, because she was deputy chief at the time.
“This protocol has been followed for multiple male deputy chiefs over the past two decades,” her complaint said.
A few months later, council promoted McCrary to interim chief.
But she claims in her lawsuit that the city manager told her she would only get the permanent position if she promoted a certain white officer.
“I would be selected as chief if I appointed him as deputy, with the understanding that he would be in charge,” she said in the filing.
The city promoted Connie Rogers to be their new chief months later. Over the next three years, McCrary stayed in her deputy chief position while the lawsuit was still pending.
Once Rogers resigned in the middle of the night in December 2025, council promoted McCrary to interim chief again.
“Why not fight if you know you’ve done nothing wrong then let the facts come out?” Walker asked.
The council members who voted in favor of the settlement did not respond to requests for comment.
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