Earlier this month, former Wrightsville Beach police chief David Squires filed a lawsuit against the town, alleging he was wrongfully terminated and detailing several incidents in which he claims the town pressured him to violate his oath and state law on behalf of influential residents.
The suit, filed on June 5 by South Carolina-based law firm Cromer Babb & Porter, LLC, claims that the town, including interim town manager Tony Wilson, pushed Squires to act unethically or illegally on behalf of former mayor and current Endowment board member Bill Blair and developer Brian Eckel, co-founder of Cape Fear Commercial and a member of Novant Health’s Board of Trustees. The town declined to comment on pending litigation; Blair and Eckel did not respond to requests for comment.
Squires was fired in July 2024, during a chaotic period of turnover that left the town without a permanent town manager, fire chief, or police chief. His termination was abrupt, and no reason was given. The town did not issue a formal termination letter, which would have detailed the reasons for firing Squires.
Squires had been the police chief for four years, following nearly three decades with the Virginia Beach Police Department. According to his lawsuit, Squires challenged the decision to fire him, filed a grievance, and participated in a ‘name-clearing hearing.’ According to his legal complaint, Squires requested that the formal grievance procedure move forward, but the town failed to respond by its own deadline.
In his suit, Squires claims he received only one performance review in his time as WBPD chief, where then-Town Manager Tim Owens gave him a score of 4.03 out of 5, or “very good.” Squires’ suit quotes Owens as saying, “Chief Squires is doing a great job. He is managing the department and public communication superbly."
According to Squires, he was never the subject of an investigation in his time leading WBPD and was never accused of poor performance or misconduct. His suit details the reasons he alleges he was abruptly fired.
Parking issues
In June 2024, about a month before he was fired, Squires said he noticed a complaint from someone about receiving an unfair parking ticket.
According to the suit, Squires looked into it, getting advice from an attorney contracted to provide WBPD with legal advice, and found the town had issued three fines between $150 to $300, above the $50 limit set by general statute. (A town spokesperson directed questions about parking fines to the town’s website, which does list several fines above $50.)
Squires told Town Manager Tony Wilson he was willing to discuss the matter.
That, Squires alleges, is when Bill Blair got involved.
“Within the hour, [Squires] received a call from Bill Blair. Mr. Blair was the former Mayor of the Town and also maintained a business relationship with Pivot Parking, which was the company hired by the Town for parking, monitoring and enforcement,” the suit alleged. Blair had previously been identified as a consultant and “Parking Operations Support Director” for Pivot, including in a pitch to handle parking for Carolina Beach.
“Mr. Blair was upset and demanded to know if [Squires] had hired an attorney to investigate his business practices,” the suit alleges, also claiming that Blair “admonished” Squires for sending an email to Wilson, since it would become a public record.
Squires alleges Wilson “made it clear that he understood the concerns raised by the attorney, but that he was vehemently opposed to any changes in current practice.”
Several days later, according to the suit, WBPD responded to an incident involving a Pivot Parking employee and two other people, ultimately citing all three for “affray.” Squires claims that within an hour, Wilson demanded to speak with him.
“Town Manager Wilson criticized the officers' handling of the situation and told [Squires] that the police should give ‘more weight’ to what the Pivot Parking employee had told the police, and less weight to what the other individuals told the police,” according to the suit. “Town Manager Wilson also mentioned that he was already receiving calls from elected officials expressing concern about this incident, and that the Board of Aldermen were not happy with the situation.”
According to the suit, Squires and Wilson discussed the incident twice over the next week. Squires said he thoroughly investigated the incident and consulted with the District Attorney’s office. He said he and the DA’s office agreed it would be inappropriate to amend any of the charges.
“Town Manager Wilson was unhappy with this report and emphasized the monetary value of [the town’s] parking violation enforcement practices and the urgent need to protect that revenue,” according to the suit.
According to his suit, Squires explained that “he, and all of his officers, were bound by their oath to perform their duties in good faith and with impartiality.”
“Incident involving Brian Eckel”
The lawsuit describes a separate incident that took place on a Saturday night in early May 2024. According to Squires’ complaint, WBPD responded to an alleged assault and reports of underage drinking. As officers investigated the situation, two adults identified themselves as homeowners and, according to the suit, “the adult couple expressed irritation at being questioned and briefly detained.” The suit later identifies one of the homeowners as Brian Eckel.
The suit notes that no arrests were made and no charges were prosecuted. However, according to Squires, there was still blowback the following day from two unnamed town alderman and the town manager.
According to Squires, a town alderman called him, saying that the homeowners were “very upset” about how officers had treated them, and told Squires it was “a matter of great urgency” for him to resolve. The alderman “conveyed that the male homeowner, Brian Eckel was very influential and actually employed the elected official.”
Hank Miller, a senior vice president at Cape Fear Commercial and an alderman at the time, confirmed this was a reference to him. He said he recalled the incident and Eckel being upset, but that he never suggested disciplining or firing Squires.
A day later, on Monday, Squires said he met with Wilson, who allegedly told him the town’s Board of Alderman were concerned about the situation. According to the lawsuit, Wilson said the town’s mayor — at the time, Darryl Mills — had requested WBPD video of the incident. Squires noted he’d “never received a request of this nature previously.” According to the suit, after the mayor learned that viewing the video would require a formal request that would later become a public record, he opted against it.
The following day, on Tuesday, Squires said a second alderman spoke with him, again saying the issue needed to be resolved quickly. Squires claimed the alderman said their adult child worked for Eckel, adding that they, along with the mayor and the first alderman, “were under pressure to resolve Mr. Eckel's concerns.”
According to the lawsuit, Squires conducted a thorough review and consulted with the District Attorney, as well as WBPD’s consulting attorney and the town’s legal counsel. Squires said he “agreed with the attorneys' advice and concluded that there was no evidence that the responding police officers had violated any law, regulation, ordinance, policy, or rule.” The suit claims no aldermen or town employee was able to identify any specific violation of law or policy.
Squires alleges he repeatedly informed Wilson and the town attorney of his findings, and “discussed and advocated for various other actions, including mediation, to help address Mr. Eckel's concerns.” Squires claims “Mr. Eckel refused to communicate with [him], and no progress was made on these efforts.”
According to Squires’ suit, “this did not seem to be a satisfactory resolution for Town Manager Wilson or the elected officials.”
“Somebody's head has to roll”
In early July, Squires said the town clerk told him that the Eckel incident was on the Board of Alderman’s agenda for a closed session on July 11.
Squires said he told the clerk this was “unprecedented,” and the clerk, “responded by expressing sympathy and saying something along the lines of ‘sometimes in cases of this nature, somebody's head has to roll.’"
The day before the planned closed session, Wilson fired Squires.
According to the suit, the clerk later texted Squires on the day of the closed session meeting to inform him the Eckel incident had been removed from the agenda; the clerk also allegedly told Squires they were unaware Squires had been fired.
Squire's firing “assuaged Mr. Eckel, and no further action was taken in that matter,” according to the lawsuit.
Wrongful discharge in "violation of public policy"
Squires’ suit claims that the town, “by and through” Tony Wilson, attempted to pressure him into breaking the law. He alleges that the pressure to favor the Pivot employee and to “unfairly discipline” police officers in the Eckel situation amounted to asking him to “enforce the laws in a biased manner and violate the oath he had taken.”
According to Squires, the town “ultimately terminated [his] employment because [he] raised concerns that [Wrightsville Beach] was charging parking fines that were hundreds of dollars more than what was permitted by statute, therefore opposing an unlawful practice, and because [Squires] refused to violate [state laws].”
Squires alleged this is a “clear violation of public policy,” and is suing for damages including lost wages, lost benefits, lost earning capacity, attorney's fees, and costs, as well as compensatory damages for mental and emotional distress, stress and anxiety, pain and suffering, and embarrassment and humiliation caused by his termination.”
Squires filed a similar suit last year, in November, but Wrightsville Beach moved to have it dismissed over a technical issue in serving the original complaint. In April of this year, the courts dismissed it.
Below: Complaint in Squires' lawsuit
