A reader asked how I felt about Fayetteville Police Chief Greg Tabor allowing two off-duty policemen from out of town, who brandished sidearms in a local pool hall while swilling shots of alcohol, to walk away without being arrested.
He asked: “Don’t you see favoritism in letting those intoxicated officers wave their loaded weapons while drinking in a public pool hall, of all places, then just walk away?”
You can bet your fully loaded automatic Sig Sauer I do. What rational person wouldn’t? The error was in not arresting and taking both men into custody at the scene, especially since one of those officers reportedly had been asked to leave for disruptive behavior. That’s when the guns were drawn.
One officer is from Prairie Grove, the other from Little Rock. Both are now the subjects of internal investigations within their departments.
But back in Fayetteville, Chief Tabor denied that he displayed favoritism in allowing the officers to leave the pool hall after an unbelievably reckless and irresponsible display. News accounts say the chief contends that any citizen who did what these officers reportedly did that night would also have been allowed to walk away freely in the company of a responsible person.
I sure don’t buy that. Neither does most of the public, which means Tabor has a serious public relations problem on his hands. There’s no exception I find in the law for allowing off-duty police officers to consume alcohol, create a ruckus in a private business, wave their pistols around as a result of their own misbehavior, then simply walk away as long as they put their guns away and are escorted out the door by a sober individual.
Anyone who buys that bizarre rationalization needs several B-12 shots and a dozen visits with a competent counselor.
There’s a legitimate reason state law forbids citizens from carrying even legally concealed weapons into places that serve alcohol. And these two police officers (of all people) convincingly displayed why such a law was necessary.
A big twist
Ah, the difference a few years can make at the Washington County sheriff’s office.
In 2011, the department ended a 2009 lawsuit alleging sexual harassment with a settlement. The issue at that time involved former detention center Capt. Randy Osburn and two female deputies who claimed Osburn had made repeated comments of a lewd, suggestive and openly sexual nature toward them.
The deputies’ allegations prompted an initial denial by the sheriff, an internal investigation, and lots of ugly headlines over the two years leading to the eventual settlement that made the entire mess finally fade into history.
I’m sure Sheriff Tim Helder breathed a little easier when that nightmare finally passed. And I’m guessing he made a pledge to himself after that episode in his tenure that he’d never let anything of that nature take root in his department. It was yet another of those lessons and tests that life continually hands each of us.
Antoine de Saint Exupery’s 1943 classic story of The Little Prince might say Helder expressed renewed intent to quickly dig out the all-consuming roots of “baobabs” when he spied them before the scourge could engulf his planet. Only in this case, the baobabs were any further potential internal problems with sexual harassment.
And I read last week that that’s just what happened. The sheriff grabbed his shovel and rooted out three deputies amid allegations of sexual harassment within the department. Only this time brought a significant twist of events. The deputies fired all were female: Tiffaine Scott, Mercedes McReynolds and Brandy Shipley.
Helder said his office discovered and confirmed they each had violated department policies dealing with sexual harassment, as well as participating in conversations of a sexual manner in front of others at the jail who complained about them. There also were allegations of retaliation by one or more of those deputies that Helder said were confirmed.
The dismissed deputies have since filed a grievance, which means for now that they are suspended with pay until a hearing where that matter can be resolved. Until then, County Attorney George Butler is fielding any questions, and I suspect Helder is feeling he did the right thing for his department and the people of Washington County.
If the allegations are confirmed, there’s no question the sheriff took the the only right and proper move available. Gender should never be a factor when it comes to the keepers of honor and integrity and their responsibilities to the public trust.
Oops.org
For those wanting detailed information about SWEPCO’s proposed massive power-transmission line through Benton and Carroll Counties (from the citizens’ point of view) relevant details are at Savetheozarks.org rather than .com. And hats off to the Eureka Springs Independent for aggressively keeping this important matter at the forefront of public attention.
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 77 on 04/28/2013