CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — The Circleville Police Department has been facing public scrutiny after three people in city leadership roles were fired or placed on administrative leave over a three week span, and on Friday a whistleblower came forward.

On March 11, former Chief of Police Shawn Baer was escorted off police department property after being placed on administrative leave. In the following weeks, former director of public safety Steven Wilkinson was hired and fired in one week, and new Acting Chief of Police Doug Davis was placed on administrative leave, with pay, due to alleged employee misconduct.

NBC4 obtained personnel files for Wilkinson and Davis, which revealed a hostile work environment within the department. Now, Wilkinson is coming forward with his story.

Wilkinson resigned from his role as a Circleville reserve police officer on March 8 and took the oath of office for the public safety director role that day. Just one week later, on March 15, he was fired. In the documents received by NBC4, no reason was given for his firing.

Before getting into the wrongdoing, Wilkinson made one thing clear.

“This has never been about the officers of the Circleville Police Department,” Wilkinson said. “I’ve never witnessed anything that would lead me to believe there’s misconduct in the rights of the police officer. This is solely in the right from their leadership. It’s a very toxic culture that needs to be changed, and that’s what I’m attempting to do.”

One of Wilkinson’s concerns questioned the training process officers go through to carry a firearm. He said he observed an October incident that left him wondering whether trainees were being passed in their firearm training without actually meeting the requirements.

“There are time limits, there are distance limits, holster limits, when rounds are being counted after the time goes off, that’s improper,” Wilkinson said. “There was three different occasions that day on the range where a person was unable to get their gun out of the holster in the prescribed time limit.”

Wilkinson didn’t want to blame any individual officer, but raised concerns about leadership’s approach to training.

“I don’t believe that the rank and file in the city of Circleville are technically qualified to carry a firearm,” Wilkinson said. “Just because a box is checked on a piece of paper does not mean that you are qualified, and the instructors that are doing that, that needs to be addressed.”

Wilkinson said he tried to approach Davis about his concerns, but was never able to get through to him. That’s where his main issue lies: the department’s leadership. He said that city leadership lives in fear of its police department.

“My personal belief for me being fired is that the mayor and the legal director, and they both said this to me, they are terrified of the police department,” Wilkinson said. “They are terrified of assault, which we can see allegedly occurred. They’re terrified of other actions that the police might take against them.”

The assault Wilkinson is referencing was allegedly against Mayor Michelle Blanton by Davis during a meeting. He said Davis gave her a list of demands regarding how the city should handle its relationship with him. Now, he’s apologizing to Blanton for his initial response.

“She’s a victim of a crime now and we shouldn’t be discussing her actions after she was allegedly assaulted,” Wilkinson said. “I didn’t have that information at the time, which leads to a whole other avenue of questions. But no, I do want to apologize for putting that out there like I did.”

Wilkinson said there is no documentation proving the assault, but that the mayor is clearly afraid of the department.

“When I put all the pieces together now, I know she’s afraid of the police department,” Wilkinson said.

Circleville City Councilmember Zack Brooks joined the short-lived public safety director in speaking out.

“It’s obviously concerning to me as a councilman, to me as a private citizen,” Brooks said. “I know it’s concerning to everybody that lives in the community to hear that, you know, we’re down leadership and pretty much all aspects of the police department at this point.”

Brooks said that he had been advised not to speak to the media.

“But my response to that is, next time they come to me and ask council to hand over $50,000 for more investigations, next time they ask for more money for a legal settlement or litigation, whatever it might be, how am I supposed to make that decision if I’m not purviewed to all the details of this evolving discussion?” Brooks said.