North Charleston's police chief is gone after nearly a year of quiet internal investigation, and the public is only now learning what city hall spent months hiding.
Chief Roland "Ron" Camacho resigned Aug. 10, Mayor Reggie Burgess announced, with Assistant Chief Scott Perry stepping in as acting chief effective immediately. But the clean, bureaucratic version of events — operations continuing without disruption, community policing moving forward — papers over a department that has been in near-constant turmoil since Burgess himself left the chief's office in May 2023 to run for mayor.
The Charleston Post and Courier reported that the city's human resources department had been investigating complaints against Camacho for nearly a year. Capt. Tammy Sad filed a formal complaint against him on Aug. 21, 2025, and this summer filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its police department alleging hostile work environment, discrimination, and retaliation. The newspaper broke the story of the internal investigation in December, while department and city staff stayed silent.
Live 5 News WCSC, by contrast, reported none of that. Its coverage read as a routine personnel transition — a resignation, a replacement with an impressive resume, a mayor promising continuity. The station quoted Burgess saying the city's priority remains resident safety and that daily operations will continue without disruption. It highlighted Perry's 30 years with the department, his direction of the Special Operations Division, and his three decades of Navy service. All true, all useful context — and all of it stripped of the reason Camacho is actually gone.
The Post and Courier noted that North Charleston previously denied public records requests for information about the initial complaint, citing the ongoing investigation. Burgess refused to disclose the nature of the probe for the same reason. "I don't usually shy away from the truth, but that's the procedure," Burgess said — a statement that should ring hollow to any taxpayer who funds that procedure.
Camacho was chief for less than two years and spent the majority of that tenure under investigation. He told the Post and Courier his first year was a "rollercoaster" and acknowledged difficulty adjusting to cultural differences after arriving from Pennsylvania by way of New York and the U.S. Army. He previously declined to comment on the investigation and did not respond to the newspaper's request for comment on Aug. 10.
Perry, the new acting chief, brings deep local experience — three decades with the North Charleston Police Department, leadership over both the Special Operations and Uniform Patrol divisions, and oversight of K-9, maritime enforcement, and the U.S. Marshal's Task Force collaboration. He is also a retired U.S. Navy Chief with 30 years of military service.
Burgess said he is taking time to evaluate the department's long-term leadership needs before launching a search for a permanent replacement.
The open question is whether the public will get straight answers this time. A chief under federal lawsuit, an HR investigation the city fought to keep quiet, and a mayor who acknowledged the truth but hid behind procedure — that is not a department in smooth transition. That is a department where the people who pay the bills were the last to know.
