NC Highway Patrol to be independently reviewed

The North Carolina State Patrol will be reviewed by in international consulting firm of law enforcement experts according to a new report just published. Another of the state organizations under Governor Mike Easley's watch is having serious operational problems adding to the possibility that state organizations are being poorly managed by those appointed by the Governor and his team of advisors. Recent news headlines have revealed that the NC DOT and DMV have had significant operating problems and morale issues indicating a general trend of poor top-down management while being led by the Governor's appointees and now the Highway Patrol is being added to the list.

A number of significant reports have surfaced in recent months about conduct issues among highway patrol officers while on duty ranging from singling out and harassing young women drivers to having sex in police cars while on duty to not properly completing reports of arrests made. This has brought one of the country's best highway patrol organizations under scrutiny and continues to bring out problems within the Easley management team. Read the latest report about the review of NC's state police team...

News and Observer
December 29, 2007
Dan Kane, Staff Writer

Highway Patrol to get outside advice

A team of law enforcement experts will visit the N.C. Highway Patrol in January to review what has gone wrong in an agency that only last year was found to be one of the nation's top police forces.

Experts with an international consulting firm will consider a baffling string of incidents in the past several months. They range from a trooper accused of abducting Hispanic women and making sexual advances to an internal affairs captain who rear-ended a vehicle and wrongly let a subordinate investigate the wreck. The only apparent pattern in each case is a lack of good judgment.

N.C. Troopers Association leaders as well as Bryan Beatty, the crime control and public safety secretary, say the incidents are isolated cases in a force of more than 1,800 sworn officers. But despite efforts to re-emphasize professionalism and keep a closer eye on troopers, officers continue to get into trouble.

"Frankly, I don't know what's going on in their minds -- some of these troopers and what they are doing," said Sgt. Steve Lockhart, vice president of the association. "It just dumbfounds me." Read more...