Public safety chiefs out

COLUMBIA — The grainy video shows a state trooper questioning three men on the side of a dark road, a routine traffic stop that grows more accusatory and more intense by the minute.

When the patrolman suddenly raises his voice and tells the men to put their hands on the car, one runs. And the trooper yells behind him.

"You better stop or I'll shoot you," he says. And then, "You better run, (n-word), because I'm fixin' to kill you."

On Friday, three years after that traffic stop, the director of South Carolina's Department of Public Safety and the colonel of the Highway Patrol have resigned.

Gov. Mark Sanford announced that Public Safety Director James K. Schweitzer's name will be withdrawn from consideration for reappointment, and Col. Russell Roark, head of the state Highway Patrol, is retiring.

"This racial epithet is absolutely unacceptable under any standard, period," Sanford said. "We are sending a clear and unequivocal signal that unacceptable behavior won't be tolerated."

Both men will remain in their posts until replacements can take over April 30.

The resignations of Schweitzer and Roark before they could be fired capped a quiet campaign of behind-the-scenes maneuvering as state officials were shown a pair of videos by members of the Legislative Black Caucus. Both were shot from troopers' in-car cameras, and both troopers from the videos, who are white, still are on the job.

Since the videos were publicized Friday, Lonnie Randolph, president of the state branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he has received a dozen calls from people who claim to have been treated similarly by state troopers. Four of those, he said, have merit.

"I regret for individuals who have long careers in law enforcement that it had to end this way," Randolph said. "But over the years we have been bombarded with complaints."

Randolph said there should be an evaluation of the department's operations, specifically of the way similar cases were handled.

"In both of the tapes, the punishment was 12 hours, which is a day's rest for dehumanizing a person," Randolph said.

Schweitzer, who was appointed by Sanford in 2004 and confirmed by the Senate, said in a statement released late Friday that he was disappointed to leave an agency he's come to love under what he feels is politics at its worst.

"Unfortunately, in state government, there are certain political realities," he said. "When I accepted this position four years ago, I understood some of those realities.

"Being in a position of authority, however, often means making decisions that will invariably be unpopular with some. I have always tried to make my decisions balancing the totality of circumstances and leaning on the principles of integrity and fairness."

Many state officials, all of whom praised the Highway Patrol, said the troopers' management has been the problem, and that problem has been solved. The troopers in the videos were given 12-hour suspensions without pay.

The tape that shows a trooper using a racial slur and threatening to shoot a man was recorded during a traffic stop in Greenwood County in December 2004. It ends with the trooper and suspect off-camera, although the audio records what sounds like a struggle.

"Why are you beating me?" a man's voice asks. "You're resisting arrest," the trooper replies.

Cocaine, marijuana and a handgun later were found in the car, which was occupied by three young, black men.

In the other video, taken in Clarendon County last year, a trooper pulls over motorist Angela Scott. Without explaining why he has stopped her, the trooper handcuffs Scott, who is black, to the front of his car. He then calls a wrecker to tow her car away.

Joseph McCulloch, a Columbia attorney representing Scott, said that she asked what she could do to prevent her car from being towed, and the trooper told her it would cost her $150. But he refused to allow her to call anyone to bring the money, and after freeing her, he left.

"He drove away leaving her in the dark, alone in the dark on a country road," McCulloch said.

Reps. Leon Howard, D-Columbia, and Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, both members of the Black Caucus, showed the videos to Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell on Tuesday and Sanford on Thursday. They suggested to both men that their concerns had been brushed off by Public Safety officials.

"Jim Schweitzer ignored us," Howard said. "He said, all laid back with a cavalier attitude, 'I've got complete confidence in Colonel Roark.' He didn't respond to the caucus."

Over the protests of some senators, who planned to reconfirm the appointment of Schweitzer, McConnell decided that he would open an investigation into the incidents during the confirmation hearings for Schweitzer next week.

"The way that lady was treated on the side of the road very much concerned me," McConnell said Friday.

But after Sanford saw the videos Thursday night, there would not be a next week for either Schweitzer or Roark. Sanford appeared upset Friday, and not very pleased that the troopers in question hadn't received harsher punishment. The governor could not say whether the man in the Greenwood County video was beaten.

"All I can go on is what I could see and what I did hear," Sanford said, "and what I did hear was something that, as South Carolinians, I think it is important that we send an unequivocally clear signal, not just to folks in law enforcement but to society at large, that there are certain bridges we must not cross, particularly if you're wearing the uniform that comes with it the power of the state."

The Legislative Black Caucus praised Sanford, McConnell and Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, for their quick and decisive response to these incidents.

"This sends a message to the rest of the country that South Carolina isn't going to tolerate this kind of behavior," said Howard, chairman of the caucus.

After The Post and Courier's "Tarnished Badges" series in 2004, Schweitzer was among many who acknowledged the state's problem with troubled police officers. He led a panel that looked at ways to tighten the disciplinary system for police misconduct.

"It doesn't inspire confidence when you hear and see some of the stories referenced in this (series)," he told the newspaper. "At the end of the day, I think we all have to be accountable for who we are putting on the streets."

Ford said there was some pressure from other lawmakers to reconfirm Schweitzer. Ford said the problem was a management style in the Highway Patrol that allowed a very few bad apples to give the department a bad name.

"I'm pleased with our (Highway) Patrol," Ford said. "You might have a few guys who are problems, and they knew Schweitzer was letting Roark do things. There you had an element of the old-fashioned police, who have felt like blacks don't have any rights."