New safety chief stressing ethics

COLUMBIA — The head of the state Department of Public Safety says he has been meeting with Highway Patrol troopers to instill ethics standards during his first 90 days on the job in the wake of videos showing troopers running down suspects with their cruisers or kicking them when they're down.

Department of Public Safety Director Mark Keel said he's giving his nearly 930 troopers a clear standard: "I will confront and challenge any unethical behavior," Keel said. "They have a duty — they have a responsibility — to report it."

Public Safety spokesman Sid Gaulden said Monday that every one of the cases involving trooper behavior that's come to light on the videos, some dating to 2004, involved troopers reporting themselves or superiors reporting their actions.

Keel now has the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility reporting incidents directly to him and continues his search for a permanent Highway Patrol commander.

"It appears complaints are down somewhat," Keel said.

A federal jury begins hearing arguments today in the civil rights case of Lance Cpl. Steve Garren, who is accused of using unreasonable force and depriving a suspect he was chasing of his civil rights. Garren's car struck the man as he ran.

Keel wouldn't comment on the trial.

Garren's dashboard video camera captured images of Marvin Grant being tossed over Garren's hood as he fled. "Yeah, I hit him. I was trying to hit him," Garren can be heard bragging on the video a few minutes later.

If convicted, the now- suspended Garren faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

After an internal investigation, then-Public Safety Director James Schweitzer suspended Garren for three days. He said those comments were "improper and unprofessional."

It was one of several instances that the Legislative Black Caucus brought to Gov. Mark Sanford's attention this year.

Patrol officers' tapes showed, among other things, a 2004 traffic stop with an angry white trooper using a racial epithet while threatening to kill a black suspect; and a separate instance of a white trooper handcuffing a black woman to the bumper guard of his car.

Sanford's review of those incidents prompted resignations from Schweitzer and the state's Highway Patrol commander.

So far, however, Keel and Highway Patrol leaders haven't been making the rounds of groups who brought the incidents to the public's and governor's attention or who have been critical of their handling.

State Rep. Leon Howard, a Columbia Democrat who chairs the Black Caucus, and Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, say Keel hasn't reached out to their groups.

Beyond Keel's promises, Howard said the public has seen and heard little about what he's doing to prevent repeats of what played out on the videos.

"That's something they need to be doing," Howard said.