Reporter’s Note: The following journalistic narrative describes the events surrounding the termination of Sergeant Derek Shipley from the Beaver Valley Regional Police Department. Shipley was a driving force behind the regionalization of policing in southeastern Beaver County, having served 15 years, including with Baden Borough, one of the department’s founding municipalities.
This reporting is based on dozens of interviews and an extensive review of documents obtained by BeaverCountian.com, including investigative findings, timelines, and notes prepared by individuals on both sides of the controversy.
Sergeant Derek Shipley didn’t think much of it when Chief Michael Priolo texted him to stop by the office on the morning of July 6 — probably something about the union grievance he’d helped Lieutenant Shawn Shillingburg settle two weeks earlier, four hours of overtime pay Shillingburg felt he was owed.
He strolled into the office a little before noon. Priolo was there. So was Shillingburg — off-duty and in plain clothes, which was odd for Shillingburg, a man who decided against applying to be chief of the new Beaver Valley Regional Police Department when it was formed just over three years ago.
Shillingburg serves as Treasurer on the Executive Board of the Beaver Valley Regional Police Union; Shipley is its president.
They made small talk about an upcoming police action. Then Priolo stood up, reached into a manila envelope, and slid a piece of paper across the desk.
“Well,” he said.
It was a so-called “Garrity” form — and a generic template of one at that, with blanks where a department name should go. It is a document that requires an officer to answer questions under threat of discipline, but with legal protections preventing anything the officer says from being used against him in any criminal probe. Shipley had never seen a Garrity form from the department before. No one in the department had. This was the first time in its three-year existence that anyone faced an inquiry or discipline of any kind.
Priolo has a likeable, warm, easygoing personality and is known by his colleagues on the job to be something of a prankster. Shipley thought this was one of his little stunts. He flippantly signed the document, slid it toward Shillingburg, and waited for Priolo’s punchline.
Priolo’s question was blunt, and clearly not a joke: “What the fuck is up with your timecard, dude?”
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