§ 8-804 Discipline and charges. 1. Except as otherwise provided by
law, a member of such police force or department shall continue in
office unless suspended or dismissed. The board of trustees or municipal
board shall have power and is authorized to adopt and make rules and
regulations for the examination, hearing, investigation and
determination of charges, made or preferred against any member or
members of such police force or department. Except as otherwise
provided, no member or members of such police force or department shall
be fined, reprimanded, suspended, removed or dismissed until written
charges shall have been examined, heard and investigated in such manner
or procedure, practice, examination and investigation as the board may
by rules and regulations from time to time prescribe. Any member of such
police force or department at the time of the hearing or trial of such
charges shall have the right to a public hearing and trial and to be
represented by counsel at any such hearing or trial, and any person who
shall have preferred such charges or any part of the same shall not sit
as judge upon such hearing or trial. Any and all witnesses produced in
such support of all or any part of such charges shall testify thereto
under oath. Any member of such force or department who shall have been
so dismissed shall not be reinstated as a member of such force or
department unless he shall within twelve months of his dismissal file
with such board a written application for a rehearing of the charges
upon which he was dismissed. Such board shall have the power to rehear
such charges and, in its discretion, reinstate a member of the force or
department after he has filed such written application therefor. Any
member of such force or department found guilty upon charges, after five
days' notice and an opportunity to be heard in his defense, of neglect
or dereliction in the performance of official duty, or violation of
rules and regulations, or disobedience, or incompetency, to perform
official duty, or an act of delinquency seriously affecting his general
character or fitness for office, may be punished by the board of
trustees or other municipal board having jurisdiction, by reprimand,
forfeiture and the withholding of salary or compensation for a specified
time not exceeding twenty days, suspension from duty for a specified
time not exceeding twenty days and the withholding of salary or
compensation during such suspension, or by dismissal from the
department. Such board shall have the power to suspend, without pay for
a period not to exceed thirty days, pending the trial of charges, any
member of such police force or department. If any member of such police
force or department so suspended shall not be convicted by such board of
the charges so preferred, he shall be entitled to full pay from the date
of suspension, notwithstanding such charges and suspension. 2.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no charges shall be
commenced more than three years after the occurrence of the alleged
neglect or dereliction in the performance of official duty, or violation
of rules and regulations, or disobedience, or incompetency, to perform
official duty, or an act of delinquency seriously affecting his general
character or fitness for office, complained of and described in the
charges provided, however, that such limitation shall not apply where
the aforementioned conduct complained of and described in the charges
would, if proven in a court of appropriate jurisdiction, constitute a
crime.