A disturbing story surfaced this week out of Lincoln County, Miss. involving a convicted sex offender who was allowed to rejoin the volunteer fire department where his father is fire chief.
In 2008, Brad Mercier was arrested for soliciting minors over the Internet. In 2014, he was convicted of two counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile — that was a plea deal he and prosecutors reached.
He was busted for asking an undercover police officer posing as an underage girl to have sex with him and send him nude photos. He was also accused of contacting the undercover officer by phone and masturbating during that conversation.
There are no laws or rules prohibiting him from being a member of the fire department, which the members voted him back on earlier this week. It’s worth noting that it was members of that fire department who complained publically about Mercier’s reinstatement.
This story has drawn sharp reactions. There’s something about sexual misconduct involving minors that is hard to forgive — it’s one of those crimes that strikes people at their core.
Not much has been offered publically by way of a defense. So, let’s step outside the obvious reaction to him being a firefighter again and consider how that defense might look.
When I first read the story, my mind jumped to John DeLorean. As you may recall, DeLorean was a famous automotive designer who formed a company to build and sell the stainless-steel bodied DMC-12. The car didn’t sell as expected, leaving DeLorean heavily in debt and desperate.
DeLorean became the subject of an FBI cocaine-dealing sting and was later acquitted because he had been entrapped. Ultimately, it came down to would DeLorean have pursued the drug deal on his own had he not been enticed into it by the FBI and its informant.
Likewise, we don’t know if Mercier approached the undercover agent or if he was lured into behavior that he may not have otherwise initiated.
We also know that plea deals are just that — a deal. He wasn’t found guilty by judge or jury. It is very plausible that he took what seemed the path of least resistance. It is also noteworthy that he pleaded in early 2014 and is now free to serve on the fire department, not a very long sentence.
We also have to consider the value of second chances. I’ve been on both ends of second chances professionally and personally, and understand their benefits. One of the best individuals I hired was a reclamation project. In the right situations, a second chance is good for both individual and organization.
And here’s where I say “however.”
However, taking all of that into account, Brad Mercier has absolutely no business being on that fire department. The downsides far outweigh any upsides.
The first and most important factor is public trust. The community knows about his conviction and asking them to allow him into their homes is asking too much. The fire department’s trust and credibility is damaged by its affiliation with him — and that’s something no fire department can afford to give away.
The next factor is the trust the firefighters on the department have in their leadership.
As a father, I fully understand the loyalty and blind devotion one has for their children. But in this case, that devotion will undermine Chief Mercier’s ability to lead his department. It smacks of nepotism at its worst.
Chief Mercier not only has to justify his son’s conviction, but his own decision to put his personal interests above those of the community and firefighters he’s sworn to protect. That’s a tall order.
The past cannot be undone. But what needs to happen in Lincoln County, Miss. is not for the father to use his position to protect the son. Rather, the younger Mercier needs to protect his father and the department by resigning, immediately.
