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Crooked Cops Getting Some Attention--Pocahontas County Cops Getting the Critical Eye

Editor's Note: Gary Harki has been running a serious investigation into the matter of crooked cops being transferred from place to place. He has another story today. The legislature is turning a critical eye on the escapades like we see in Pocahontas County.

We have our own dirty cops right in this county, even worse than elsewhere.

December 27, 2009
Legislators eye police accountability
By Gary A. Harki
Staff writer
Advertiser

CHARLESTON -- State lawmakers are starting to look into issues of police accountability, with an eye on the upcoming legislative session.

Sen. Bill Laird, D-Fayette, a former four-term sheriff in Fayette County, believes it's time to make some changes to laws regarding police certification.

"I'm looking at potential legislation," he said. "One remedy would be the creation of some type of centralized database, used to collect allegations of misconduct from law enforcement."

Laird said he believes the Law Enforcement Training Subcommittee of the Governor's Committee on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections could serve as a repository for that information.

"I hasten to add, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers are truly dedicated professionals who do their duty and perform in a conscientious manner," he said. "But it's also important to discern patterns of misconduct. And the only way to do that would be to create a certain type of database used to track discipline."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, said he didn't have a problem adding staff and duties to the LET subcommittee to make sure it can adequately deal with problem officers.

"It appears to be something we genuinely need to do," Kessler said, adding that most officers are good officers. "We absolutely need to make sure people have trust in law enforcement. You're supposed to call police to help you, not to hurt you. That's basic. And if someone falls through the cracks ... they need to be removed from the field and I don't think any officer thinks to the contrary."

Laird said he believes there would have to be a mandatory reporting requirement for police departments that would be triggered based upon acts of misconduct.

"There are some fairly longstanding examples of state regulation and oversight with respect to conduct and behavior," he said. "And I think there are examples in other states to look at. I haven't got to that point in the research."

'The Earth hasn't fallen in'

Police need to be held accountable by an agency outside the bounds of law enforcement, said Gareth Jones, director of the Special Ombudsman Response Team in Ontario, Canada.

The agency has exclusive jurisdiction in the province over any investigation into a death or serious injury involving a police officer, he said. It started around 1990 after a series of questionable shootings by police officers.

"Previously, if the cops were doing [the investigations], everyone would scream whitewash. Now the process has credibility," Jones said.

"We were as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool, originally. The police were suspicious, they were hostile. Nobody likes oversight. ... Gradually what's happened is, the Earth hasn't fallen in and it's been done reasonably and fairly and the public has confidence in it."

A former sergeant in London's metropolitan police force, Jones believes he has investigated more shootings involving police officers than anyone else in the world -- more than 100.

Jones' agency has a budget of $5.5 million and deals with about 250 incidents a year, he said. That's for a province with a population of 14 million.

"Sure you have to put the money out up front, but you save millions," Jones said. "We have very few lawsuits now, compared to when this started in 1989, 1990."

The agency has an exoneration rate of 97 percent, he said.

"Originally, the government made the usual mistake of under-budgeting it," he said. "Now, we have 12 full-time investigators plus 30 part-time. ... It saves you money. And, don't make it a home for retired cops. That brings its own problems. You've got to bring in civilians that have investigative experience."

Civilian review boards are commonplace in the United States.

Of the 20 largest American cities, only three do not have some type of civilian review of police. And in one of them -- Jacksonville, Fla. -- community leaders are pushing to have one put in place, according to the Florida Times-Union.

There is a range of civilian oversight models that fit into two overlapping groups, according to Philip Eure, president of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement and head of Washington, D.C.'s, Office of Complaints.

The first are investigator models that have a separate staff with civilian investigators, often lawyers, who look into complaints of police misconduct.

The second type are auditor or monitor models, which don't do their own investigation but review investigations done by police and issue reports based on those reviews. These models are cheaper to run, Eure said.

"They don't have the resources to re-do every case. They pick and choose cases," he said. "They've been in vogue the last several years."

There are many hybrids of those models, he said.

The Iowa Office of Citizen's Aide/Ombudsman serves in a similar capacity to an oversight board statewide, said Samuel Walker, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Omaha and an expert on police accountability.

The office has jurisdiction over not just police, but nearly all government offices in state and local government, said William P. Angrick II, ombudsman for Iowa.

"When we get a complaint about local law enforcement ... we will ask the complainant to utilize the established or expected local internal mechanism, first. We will ask the complainant to talk to internal affairs, to raise it there first."

The office gets about 4,500 complaints annually from various departments, not just law enforcement, Angrick said.

'Nothing worse than a bad cop'

When the FBI hears about a potential civil rights violation by a police officer, the charge is taken very seriously, said Jay Bartholomew, supervisory special agent with the FBI in Charleston.

In addition to the Matthew Leavitt case, which sent the former Montgomery officer to jail, Bartholomew's office has been involved in another high-profile investigation into police misconduct in the past year.

On Dec. 2, former Dunbar Police officer Raymond O. Conley pleaded guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor civil rights violation for coercing a woman into having sex with him while he was on duty in exchange for dropping an illegally obtained drug charge against her.

But although such cases are a high priority, the FBI only has so many hours to devote to them, Bartholomew said.

"We are limited. We do have limited resources and there are still other high priority matters to address. We have no terrorism leads going unaddressed. Every one gets handled," Bartholomew said. "There are high priorities that compete for resources, like public corruption."

At the end of the day, the FBI is not a review agency, Bartholomew said.

"The majority of police officers are good guys," he said. "There's the presumption of innocence on anybody accused of a crime, and I think most juries give officers the benefit of the doubt, so you have to have some pretty solid evidence."

Investigations into police officers' actions in West Virginia are usually done internally or by the State Police. Bluefield is the only city in the state with any type of civilian review board.

In September 1998, Robert Ellison, a 20-year-old black man, was beaten and dragged by two white Bluefield police officers outside a nightclub, leaving him paralyzed below the neck, according to the report by the West Virginia Advisory Committee, "Coping with Police Misconduct."

Ellison settled a suit against the city in June 2000. The city agreed to pay him $1 million, increase its efforts to hire more minority police and establish a civilian panel to review police misconduct investigations.

"There's nothing worse than a bad cop," Bartholomew said. "Most of the chiefs of police out there want to get rid of a bad cop, they are more than willing to work with us. ... That goes for most cops. Ninety-nine percent are good guys. It's the 1 percent that aren't that tarnishes the badge. No self-respecting cop wants to pick up the newspaper and read about bad cops. That hurts us all."

'Less than 1 percent'

Of the approximately 3,500 police officers that work in West Virginia, very few run afoul of the rules.

"You're talking about a very small number, less than 1 percent. I think I would want the public to keep that in mind," said West Virginia State Police Sgt. Curtis Tilley, chairman of the LET and assistant director of training at the State Police training academy.

"Although these things make headlines, and make headlines understandably because police are in such a position of public trust, if you look at the number, it's still small, less than 1 percent. Ninety-nine percent are doing what they should be doing and that's what we hope the public remembers."

Adding police oversight will cut down on police lawsuits, said Roger Goldman, professor at the St. Louis University School of Law and an expert on police certification.

"Look at it from the perspective of big-time lawsuits -- let's nip it in the bud a lot sooner and save taxpayers' money," he said. "The cost of one more lawsuit isn't worth the investment in a person's salary? Come on."

Jones, the ombudsman in Canada, said it's important that there be a division between police and whoever is overseeing them to keep the integrity of the process.

There are also special interest groups that want to be involved in police oversight, wanting to prosecute police for doing their jobs, he said. Both police and the special interest groups need to be kept out of the oversight process, he said.

"It all comes down to the integrity of the investigative process, that it's done thoroughly and objectively," Jones said. "In the end who gives a **** what the police think, what special interests think? It's what the public thinks that matters."

Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.

Please back me up on this matter of dirty cops in POcahontas County

I have included the telephone number of Gary Harki who is doing a great job investigating the mess with the police in WV. I have talked to him on different occasions and emailed him several times but he needs to know that there are other people in POcahontas County who are sick of this mess with the dirty cops. Please contact Harki. gazette@wvgazette.com

We need to get the word out about the underage sex problem some of our police have had, particularly the one who got the 13 year old pregant. Woluld someone contact Harki regarding that. I have already discussed the issue as well and am attempting to get additional testimony for his investigation.

Things are not going to get better. David Jonese is going right along with the good ole boy system. He has never reported back on the police investigation regarding the sexual assault on Darla Piland. We have got to get this to the forfront; it has been over 9 months and not a word from Jonese.

Pocahontas Deputy Was Stripped of Kentucky Certification and Was Hired by DAvid Jonese

Editor's Note: Read the following carefully and it will scare you because we have a cop WHO ACTUALLY WAS STRIPPED OF HIS CERTIFICATION AND IS NOW A COP IN OUR COUNTY. David Jonese has not required him to be recertified in our state.



December 26, 2009
Still in uniform: W.Va. police rarely lose certification
By Gary A. Harki
Staff writer
Advertiser

A look at officers who have gotten in trouble is at the bottom of this story

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Some have been accused of rape, others pleaded to misdemeanors. One witnessed a savage beating that's sending his partner to prison.

All are still wearing a badge.

Despite a recent rash of incidents of police misconduct, just seven of the nearly 3,500 police officers in West Virginia have lost their certification since the 2005-06 fiscal year.

The state has a high threshold to remove police officer's badges once they're certified, said Chuck Sadler, state law enforcement training coordinator.

"Once they're hired, unless they are convicted of a crime and the committee takes action, they will always carry that certification," Sadler said.

The entity that certifies and decertifies police officers in West Virginia -- the Law Enforcement Training Subcommittee of the Governor's Committee on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections -- has made the decision to only consider decertifying officers who have been convicted of a jailable offence, said Sadler, who serves as the subcommittee's lone staff member.

Meanwhile, officers who have gotten into trouble, but still hold their certification, are merely switching departments, a Sunday Gazette-Mail investigation has found.

Examples from departments in Kanawha, Fayette, Greenbrier and Summers counties show 11 officers continue to patrol the streets, despite leaving their previous departments under a cloud.

West Virginia is not alone in its problem with police officers moving from department to department after getting into trouble, said Samuel Walker, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Omaha and an expert on police accountability.

"It is believed to be a problem nationwide," he said. "The phrase 'gypsy cops' has come up. There's not any solid research on that. We don't know how common it is."

Some states have begun aggressively decertifying officers, he said.

Since 2006, Florida has decertified 178 officers, about 1 in 280 police officers in the state. The seven West Virginia has decertified in roughly the same time period is about 1 in 500 of the state's 3,500 police officers.

State legislators are starting to take notice.

"It's not commonplace to have bad apples in the law enforcement field," said current state Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall. "But they are not immune from having bad apples. And they need to be removed in order to instill public confidence. They need to be dealt with quickly and effectively so that the public has confidence that law enforcement is upholding the law."

A Sunday Gazette-Mail investigation has determined that at least 44 municipal police officers in Kanawha and Fayette counties have worked at multiple departments since 2005. That number is almost certainly higher because not all municipalities in the two counties are accounted for. There are no figures for the other 53 counties in the state.

West Virginia police are almost always investigated by fellow officers. In 120 municipalities across the nation, that's not enough. For more than 30 years, U.S. cities have been setting up civilian review boards to address situations where police otherwise must investigate fellow officers.

"The broader issue here is transparency on public, certified professionals," Walker said. "If an attorney is disbarred it's public record."

There are essentially two parts to holding police officers accountable to the public, Walker said.

"I think civilian review boards are a piece of a larger puzzle in achieving greater accountability," he said. "And you need an agency to look at complaints and other problems and you need a way of (decertifying) officers with a proven record of unsuitability."

Never Charged

Only one officer out of the 11 who left their previous departments amid serious allegations is no longer a police officer -- Matthew Leavitt, who beat and harassed Twan and Lauren Reynolds in Montgomery.

Leavitt's partner that night, Shawn Hutchinson, has admitted to threatening to arrest his superior officer if he tried to stop Leavitt. He is now an officer in Chesapeake.

In a deposition in the Reynolds civil suit, Hutchinson said then-Montgomery Lt. Joe Burrow was interfering with a lawful arrest because he was a neighbor of the Reynoldses.

That "lawful arrest" included Leavitt hitting Twan Reynolds over the head with a blackjack, kicking him in the back and spraying his eyes with pepper spray at close range.

Leavitt also used a racial epithet and licked Lauren Reynolds on the neck during an interrogation, saying, "Little *****, you like it like that." The Reynolds' 4-year-old daughter witnessed much of the assault.

The Law Enforcement Training Subcommittee has no plans to review Hutchinson's certification, said West Virginia State Police Sgt. Curtis Tilley, chairman of LET and assistant director of training at the State Police training academy.

"That officer [Hutchinson] has not been reviewed based on the guidelines the committee works under," Tilley said. "He was never charged with anything the committee could review. Things subsequent to a lawsuit, civil suit are not within the committee's guidelines."

The committee, whose members include Kanawha County Sheriff Mike Rutherford, State Police Col. Timothy Pack and state Human Rights Commission Director Ivin Lee, sets standards for training of police officers, in addition to certifying.

Three officers were decertified in each of the past two years, one in 2007 and none in 2006, Sadler said.

In addition to three decertifications, in 2009 three officers were put on a probationary period and told they would be given back their full certification when certain criteria were met, Sadler said.

"Although we have had several incidents recently in the news, when it comes to revoking an officer's certification, I believe we've done a fair and equitable job of doing that," Tilley said. "If an officer is doing something outside the normal guidelines, it falls within that agency to correct that through their own internal affairs and investigation."

The committee drew the line at criminal convictions because it can get information on officers from court documents, he said. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the committee to get information about officers in other circumstances, he said.

"Where we have an issue is that we have no authority to ask an agency to provide internal information. And on the other hand there are certain legal guidelines that prevent that agency from turning the information over. It's a catch-22 in that sense," Tilley said.

Departments won't give up their internal affairs investigations without a subpoena for fear of being sued by the officer, he said.

A 'toothless process'

West Virginia's law is sufficiently broad enough to decertify officers who cause problems said Roger Goldman, professor at the St. Louis University School of Law and an expert on police certification. But the process in which the state goes about decertifying officers is lacking, he said.

West Virginia State Code 30-29-5 sets the state's certification requirements. Legislative rules clarify the code, stating that the LET subcommittee "may suspend, revoke, or deny the certification of a law enforcement officer or, if applicable, deny admission to a basic entry-level training program for conduct or a pattern of conduct unbecoming to an officer or activities that would tend to disrupt, diminish, or otherwise jeopardize public trust and fidelity in law enforcement."

But it's the implementation of the code and rules, and perhaps a lack of funding where West Virginia has a problem, Goldman said.

"It sounds like West Virginia has set up a process that is really toothless," he said. "The state agency should have sufficient staff and subpoena power to investigate. And it should set a reasonable standard for revoking someone's certification. It shouldn't just be convictions."

There are 44 states that have some form of decertification for police officers, Goldman said. Of those, fewer than half decertify only those officers who have been convicted of a crime.

"That's a pretty low standard. It should be any termination or if some officer is under investigation by internal affairs and then resigns. That's essentially a plea bargain," Goldman said. "They should be required to file notification so someone can look into it. ... There are ways for the Legislature to remedy that."

During the 2009 legislative session, Tilley said the committee asked state lawmakers to give the Director of Criminal Justice Services, which the committee falls under, subpoena power. The request didn't make it into law, he said.

In 2008, an agency came to the subcommittee and said that an officer resigned because he'd had severe problems with the department and probably shouldn't be certified as a police officer. But the department said it couldn't legally give up its internal records, and the committee had no way to subpoena the records.

"So how do we go about reviewing the individual?" Tilley said. "Basically, there was no way. I mean, the agency was trying to do the right thing, but there was no way we could learn the information because it was an internal matter. ... This is why we need a rule change."

That's not the case in Florida, where the Florida Department of Law Enforcement regularly decertifies officers, said Kristen Chernosky, spokeswoman for the department.

"If there is a verifiable complaint, we'll open up a case," she said. "If an officer does something bad, the employing agency first has to conduct an internal investigation of what happened. Then they send the findings to us and we review it."

There is a process set up to both punish and decertify officers, she said.

Coming Monday: State legislators are starting to look into issues of police accountability.

Reach staff writer Gary A. Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.

Changing of the guard

A look at police officers in four West Virginia counties that have gotten in trouble in one department and found police work elsewhere:

# Then-Charleston police officer Brandon Tagayun pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for slamming into Patsy Sizemore's pickup truck and killing her in 2005. Now he's an officer in St. Albans.

# In 2002, a Summersville woman told the Gazette-Mail that then-Summersville officers Heath A. and L. Shawn Whipkey were suspended after city officials learned both officers engaged in inappropriate behavior with her in a police car. Now they write tickets as officers in Gauley Bridge.

# In December 2007, then-Charleston police officers Conrad M. Carpenter and Cpl. James E. White Jr. illegally shot a deer in Putnam County. After pleading to misdemeanors, both found work as police officers again. In October 2008, White got a job as a Marmet police officer. He left that department in April. Carpenter continues to work as an officer in Montgomery, where he was hired in November 2008

# Derek S. Snavely was accused of raping a woman while on duty as a West Virginia State Police trooper last year. Now he is police chief in Hinton.

# Robert Alkire II resigned from his job as a Pocahontas County sheriff's deputy after firing his gun at his girlfriend's house. Now he's a police officer in Ronceverte in Greenbrier County.

# Eric Eagle pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of obtaining money under false pretenses for doing security work at the Charleston Town Center while still on the clock at the Charleston Police Department. Now he's the police chief in Pratt.

# Carl Wayne Young was fired as a conservation officer from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources for stalking an ex-girlfriend who worked there and for providing false information during an internal investigation. A West Virginia Public Employees Grievance Board decision said the woman's claim that Young stalked her wasn't credible, but found that he had provided false information during the investigation. Young is now an officer in Ansted.

# In October, Matthew Leavitt was sentenced to two years in federal prison for violating Twan and Lauren Reynolds' civil rights while working as a police officer in Montgomery. In September 2008, Leavitt hit Twan over the head with a blackjack, kicked him in the back and sprayed his eyes with pepper spray at close range. He also used a racial epithet. Since March 2005, Leavitt had worked as a police officer in six different area police departments.

# Leavitt's partner that evening, Shawn Hutchinson, threatened to arrest his superior officer for trying to stop Leavitt. Federal prosecutors decided not to prosecute Hutchinson, as long as he stays out of trouble for one year, according to a deposition in the case. He now works as an officer in Chesapeake.

-- Gary Harki

Re: Pocahontas Deputy Was Stripped of Kentucky Certification and Was Hired by DAvid Jonese

wonder how many of that 1% of bad cops poc county has had seems % wise far more than 1%.i would like to say i think troy is about as honest as they come ,ive never heard of him doing anything wrong or chasing woman on duty ,ive had a couple run ins with troy ,he was fair and didnt take advantage of his position in any way,barlow also is as clean as they come.

Re: Pocahontas Deputy Was Stripped of Kentucky Certification and Was Hired by DAvid Jonese

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/watchdog/2009/12/18/matthew-leavitt-speaks/



Matthew Leavitt speaks
by Gary Harki

Matthew Leavitt, who pleaded guilty to two federal misdemeanors and acknowledged in court that he wrongly arrested Lauren Reynolds for DUI and beat her husband Twan Reynolds with a slapjack, called in to MetroNews Talkline on WCHS Radio Thursday and said none of those things ever happened.

The interview is online here.

“There’s nothing more I can do than to state the fact that this didn’t happen,” he said. “The allegations that were made against me and my partner were stuff out of the movies, something you would expect out of a movie about a corrupt 1960s sheriff out of Mississippi. They were crazy.

“I just try to pick up what I got left and take care of my family and live my life as I always have. I just want to go on the record as saying I have no problems or issues with any race, sex, creed, color, religion. I believe in doing the right thing. That’s what I tried to do when I wore my badge,” Leavitt said.

When asked about other allegations, Leavitt said he figured there would be more charges coming.

“I’m sure if Mike Clifford and the insurance companies’ checkbooks have anything to do with it, yeah there’ll be a lot more allegations.”
The interviewer quickly pointed out that the allegations came from other people.

One of those people was Patrica O’Scha, who has since died. O’Scha claimed that Leavitt and other officers sexually assaulted her in March 2008, six months before the Reynolds incident.

O’Scha called me and I interviewed her in April 2008. I listened to her story and told her that if she filed a lawsuit, I’d write a story. Accusing police officers of wrongdoing isn’t something you take lightly. It’s a tough job where good people are often put in impossible situations. Every situation is different, but in most cases it takes a lawsuit to get such allegations in the newspaper.

But by the time Leavitt pulled Twan and Lauren Reynolds over in September 2008, I’d heard many stories of Leavitt harassing and abusing the citizens of Montgomery. Some of those turned into lawsuits, some did not.

I’d even had a personal experience with Leavitt when I went to Montgomery to interview citizens about him. I was sitting on the porch of a black family when a police car approached. He drove down the narrow street, sandwiched between the railroad tracks and a sidewalk, and looked at me, my press card hanging from my neck. I normally don’t wear my press card to interview people, but I figured it made me look more official, which couldn’t be a bad thing with all of the stories I’d been hearing.

As Leavitt drove down the street, he shooed several black people off of the sidewalk. There was no explanation for his actions and he never got out of his car. They complied as if it were normal.

When Twan and Lauren Reynolds called in on Saturday, Sept. 26, the Gazette’s weekend editor at the time, Scott Finn, took the call. Scott was horrified by the story they told him. When I found out it was Leavitt, I was far from surprised.

Read the original story on Twan and Lauren Reynolds.

Read about Leavitt’s history.
3 comments

1 rwc { 12.18.09 at 1:39 pm } More and more these small towns are hiring “cops” that have had shady pasts,only to find out their past comes back to haunt the new town that hires them.Once a formal complaint comes out and allegations like this man has had in several towns,this state needs to suspend their certification and investigate them immediately.If the investigation proves that he/she are taking their jobs and using them like this guy did,they revoke their privileges and rights to be a law enforcement officer.He definately left a trail of misconduct,and why people continued to hire him is beyond my beliefs.

.2 ramrod { 12.20.09 at 6:20 pm } WE NEED A POLICE CIVILAN REVIEW BOARDS TO OVER SEE LAW-ENFORCEMENT. WE KNOW FOR A FACT THAT LAW-ENFORCEMENT CAN NOT DO IT THEMSHELF . AND THAT A FACT .

.3 rwc { 12.23.09 at 4:31 pm } ramrod,one problem to that,people like the” three stooges” in charleston couldn’t sweep the problems of their own under the rug.

Re: Pocahontas Deputy Was Stripped of Kentucky Certification and Was Hired by DAvid Jonese

stinky, sometimes you amaze me- you just gotta look at this situation as an optimal opportunity employment environment for little robbie, daddy alkire, sir wilfong, and select company!!!











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