On today’s show, I’m sitting down with Mike Fanta, who served on the Wilmington Police Department for almost three decades. In the last days of his career, he filed a complaint against Chief Donny Williams.
Among other things, Fanta’s complaint details incidents of harassment, intimidation, and mismanagement over Williams’ four years as chief. Fanta alleged that Williams consistently insulted him and other top brass, questioning their ethics, ignoring their input, and accusing them of undermining him — sometimes with the implication of overt racism.
One flashpoint disagreement, which Fanta detailed in his complaint, was putting vice detectives on paid leave early in the Covid pandemic, when Williams was acting chief. Some of those detectives were then moved to the community compliance unit — essentially serving as plain-clothes scouts of businesses to see if they were obeying the new Covid regulations that were being rolled out at the time. We’ve largely confirmed that did happen. Fanta said he complied with William's orders, but when he raised concerns about how the decision could impact the public’s faith in the department, Fanta said he was met with hostile pushback and accused of insubordination — but that’s an allegation.
Fanta’s complaint led to a $75,000 dollar third-party investigation of Williams this summer. Fanta, who had since retired, was informed by the city’s HR department that at least some of his complaints had been sustained — and city officials, including Mayor Bill Saffo, have told me they are taking appropriate action.
But it remains unclear what that actually means. City Manager Tony Caudle has declined to release the report, even to city council, claiming it is protected by state law. That’s true - but that law also has a caveat that allows officials to release personnel information if it is "essential to maintaining public confidence."
It is, in fact, the caveat that allowed Wiliams and city council to release information, including written excerpts of audio recordings, about James Gilmore, Jesse Moore, and Kevin Piner — three racist officers who were fired in 2020, on Williams’ first day as the city’s first Black police chief.
Not releasing the report has left plenty of space for speculation, and has done little to quell racial tensions. Leaders of the Black community have argued that criticisms of Williams are racially motivated and have dismissed even the sustained complaints against him — although, like me, they've never had the chance to read the report.
Williams recently held a press conference to address some of these claims. Williams told me he himself hasn’t read the report, and said there were some aspects of it he would not discuss because they concerned personnel issues. But he did argue that systemic racism is alive and well in his department — and said point blank he felt the allegations made by Fanta, who is white, were racially motivated.
As evidence, Williams pointed to one of Fanta’s complaints, about a plexiglass container that sits in the chief’s office, labeled ‘the box of shame,’ and containing the badges of Gilmore, Moore, and Piner. Williams said anyone who complained about the shaming of overt racists — some of who threatened horrific violence against the black community — must be racially biased themselves. The chief brought deputy Chief Kelvin Hargove, who recently rejoined the department, to the press meeting. Hargrove explained why he felt Fanta’s criticism of his promotion was also racially biased because Fanta complained that a so-called janitor, who was a Black man, served on the promotional committee.
Fanta categorically denies he’s a racist — and has said anyone leveling that allegation at him, including Williams, could face a defamation suit. As he explains in this interview — he saw the badges as part of Williams’ larger campaign of intimidation. And he says his criticism of Hargrove’s promotion had nothing to do with race — but acknowledged his disagreement with the process did end their decades-long friendship. He also noted that his complaint named high-ranking Black and Hispanic officers as witnesses in his complaint.
Whatever you think of Fanta’s allegations, I think it’s fair to say there was more going on in his complaint than was captured in most of the reporting, including mine. So, I agreed to sit down for an hour-long interview, which you’re about to hear. We’re presenting this essentially as we recorded it, with just a few moments where I added some notes for clarity or context.
A quick note before we get started: if you’re coming to this story fresh, and don’t have much backstory, I recommend you check out the show notes for some key links to past reporting. Also, this interview contains some adult language, so listener caution is advised.
Links:
- Sunday Edition: Donny Williams in Black and White
- Sunday Edition: A tightrope act atop the Skyline Center
- City of Wilmington paid $75,000 for third-party investigation of police department management
- New filing in Wilmington crime lab lawsuit alleges culture of gender bias at WPD
- Fired Wilmington cop: “We are just going to go out and start slaughtering them f—— ni—–. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.” [Port City Daily]