Charlotte City Council member Warren Turner has been fired from his job as a state probations officer, the Charlotte Observer reported late Tuesday.

The N.C. Department of Corrections began investigating Turner after the City Council hired a private investigator in March to determine whether the west Charlotte Democrat had sexually harassed a female city staff member.

According to the Observer, Turner was fired Monday.

Secretary of Correction Alvin Keller issued a statement Tuesday saying “no information was discovered indicating that Turner engaged in inappropriate speech or conduct with female offenders,” the Observer reported.

However, the DOC said, Turner “didn’t follow directives from his chain of command, which resulted in his dismissal for unacceptable...conduct.”

Turner had worked for DOC for two decades.

The City Council investigation found five female city employees who said Turner made sexually inappropriate comments to them.

Turner denied wrongdoing and council members voted 6-3 against censuring him.

In an unrelated incident, a woman told the Observer that in 2009 Turner showed his gun to a group of laborers and ordered them to stop work on a building. The woman, who worked with day laborers, said Turner told the men he was a code enforcement officer.
Turner said he never showed his gun to the men but did admit asking them if they had a building permit. He said he never misrepresented himself as a code enforcement officer.

Turner was hired by the DOC after he was fired from the Charlotte Police Academy in December 1988, according to the city’s investigation. A female cadet who was in the same class as Turner told the Observer that Turner had verbally harassed her, and was then kicked out of the academy for threatening her.

Turner has said he never harassed the woman.
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This story was based on the work of Observer reporters Steve Harrison and Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
 

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