(Background) Photo via: Barrackville Police Department; Facebook / (L) Former Barrackville Police Chief Zachary Freeburn (via: Barrackville Police Department; Facebook)

OAN Staff Katherine Mosack and Brooke Mallory
11:13 AM – Wednesday, July 8, 2026

A small town in Marion County, West Virginia, has reportedly “lost” its entire police department.

A Facebook post from the Barrackville Police Department announced on Tuesday, “Effective immediately, the entire Barrackville Police Department has been relieved of duty by the Mayor and City Council.”

“We are sincerely grateful for the support, trust, and encouragement shown to us by the Barrackville community throughout our service. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve and protect this town,” the social media statement went on. “We thank the citizens of Barrackville for allowing us the opportunity to serve, and we wish the community continued safety and the very best in the future.”

The two-man Barrackville Police Department was effectively dissolved on Tuesday morning after its remaining officer, Sergeant David Hunt, reported an apparent break-in at the department’s evidence room.

 

Hunt discovered the breach upon arriving at work and immediately called an emergency meeting with Mayor Tom Straight and the town council. The tension escalated when Hunt noted the council had previously discussed auditing the department’s inventory without any officers present, and a council member purportedly admitted to taking a set of police keys.

When Hunt alleged that members of the local government were involved in the break-in, the council voted to immediately place him and the town’s only other active officer on administrative leave. The department’s civilian clerk resigned in protest immediately after, leaving the municipality entirely void of law enforcement staff.

Meanwhile, the mass fallout comes less than a week after Police Chief Zachary Freeburn abruptly resigned over what he described as “systemic overreach and hostile micromanagement” by the newly elected town council, detailing the clashes in a letter read aloud during the meeting.

 

In his letter, Freeburn stated that a prominent council member had planned an extensive overhaul of the police department’s policies, attempting to mandate that nearly all law enforcement activities receive explicit council approval before execution. Freeburn aggressively resisted the changes, arguing that allowing politicians to dictate daily police operations directly violated West Virginia state code governing municipal law enforcement independence.

Ultimately, Freeburn stated he chose to exit the “hostile work environment” engineered by the council to protect his personal safety and well-being. In his parting remarks, the former chief also validated long-standing public grievances against the local government, criticizing the council’s systemic lack of transparency and its frequent reliance on closed-door executive sessions.

“I would like to apologize to the citizens for my abrupt departure, but please know it was not without reason,” he wrote in his letter, thanking the town’s citizens for support during his eight-year tenure.

 

“After the new council took office, within the first hour of being elected, I had a meeting behind closed doors that immediately raised numerous red flags as to the direction the Town wished to take the Police Department,” he continued. “During this discussion, I was informed a council member would be directly supervising the Barrackville Police Department, which is against West Virginia State Code. The Mayor is in charge of all daily operations of the Town and Police Department, and the only person he can appoint to supervise a Police Department is the Chief of Police.”

“Trying to be professional and realizing I do not know everything, I offered an open discussion into potential changes as I am always open to bettering myself and the Department. This was immediately shut down, and I was told, and this is a rough quote, but it is what I remember [him saying], ‘If I give you a directive you follow it. This is not an open discussion. I am in charge and what I say goes,’” he concluded.

What Happens Next

 

Following the collapse of the local police department, the town is now entering a legal and logistical aftermath. On the legal front, Sergeant Hunt has officially announced that he is taking steps to secure whistleblower protection under West Virginia law.

Because he and his fellow officer were stripped of their duties immediately after reporting a suspected crime involving local officials, this legal safety net will be critical in protecting them from permanent termination, retaliation, or professional blacklisting while the matter is contested.

Meanwhile, since the allegations involve an internal break-in at a police station and directly implicate members of the town council, the investigation into the compromised evidence room carries too severe a conflict of interest for county authorities to handle alone.

The case is expected to be formally referred to the West Virginia State Police or an independent state-level public integrity unit to determine exactly what was compromised or removed from the evidence locker, and who was behind the breach.

On the ground, the immediate operational reality forces Barrackville to rely entirely on outside law enforcement. The Marion County Sheriff’s Department has assumed absolute responsibility for all emergency responses, traffic enforcement, and active security needs within the town limits, with residents instructed to route all police calls directly through 911 or the county dispatch while the municipal station sits empty.

Looking further ahead, the long-term question centers on the future of municipal law enforcement in the community. The Barrackville Town Council faces a massive logistical and financial hurdle, leaving it unclear whether they will attempt to rebuild a brand-new police force from scratch, or if they will choose to permanently dissolve the local department and contract out to the county sheriff long-term to trim the budget and avoid more scrutiny.

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