ALTAMONT — The village’s police force is down one officer.
"I hereby resign from my post as a Police Officer for the Village of Altamont," wrote Josh Davenport in a letter of resignation dated Sept. 22. "I release the Village of Altamont and any and all of its employees from any claim or claims against them which I may have had," the letter concludes.

Davenport had been suspended for 30 days without pay earlier last month. After an executive session at September’s village board meeting, the board voted unanimously to bring disciplinary charges against him.
"Unless he resigns, we’ll proceed," said Guy Roemer, the village’s attorney, last month. He would not comment on what Davenport was suspended for or what the disciplinary charges were going to be, though.
"There are various instances, I’m talking in the plural, not just one," he said when asked if the suspension was related to a January complaint lodged by Colin Abele.

When asked about Davenport’s resignation yesterday, Roemer said initially that the letter was sealed as part of a settlement agreement.

Later in the day, he said that there was no settlement. Mayor James Gaughan did not return calls for comment.

Citizens had complained two years ago about excessive police presence in Altamont. A new public safety commissioner, Anthony Salerno, was hired in 2005. Under Salerno’s leadership, the Altamont Police Department has been scaled back to seven officers, most of them part-time, and the commissioner.

Although nobody would comment on the cause of Davenport’s last suspension, in January of 2006 he was suspended for a week without pay as a result of a complaint from Abele. While working at Ketchum’s, the local gas station and convenience store, Abele said in a letter to the editor of The Enterprise that "officer Davenport has repeatedly and consistently used foul, abrasive, and threatening language when approaching me at my place of employment."
On hearing that Davenport had resigned from the police force, Abele was pleased. "I think this guy should be in a profession other than law enforcement," he said yesterday.
Although Abele initially had concerns over whether his complaint would be taken seriously by the department, he said that he had no complaints over the way it was handled. He said that the resignation of Davenport was good for Altamont. "He was a bad apple," Abele said.

Salerno and Davenport could not be reached for comment.