Headlines?

 

What happens when a law enforcement officer is arrested on a DUI charge? Well, as we have seen in the recent past that arrest is splashed all over the local “news” outlets with HUGE headlines. The headlines get even bigger if the officer was driving an official vehicle while intoxicated. Television news will feature that story for at least two days, prominently displaying the officer’s mugshot on the air and on the media outlet’s Facebook and Twitter feeds.

That is how it normally works. Things change when the law enforcement officer charged with driving under the influence and wrecking his official vehicle happens to work for Sheriff Wayne DeWitt in Berkeley County. When that happens the booking process is done manually, with no electronic fingerprinting and no entry of data into a computer system. Why is it done manually? Well, completing the process only on paper keeps the information out of the computer system. Completing the fingerprinting process on hard cards rather than the fingerprint computers normally used prevents that information from being immediately forwarded to SLED and added to the arrestee’s criminal history. Manual processing also makes it easier to hide the arrest from the prying eyes of the media and give them the runaround when they show up asking questions.

We have received information that a Berkeley County deputy, who has been in trouble before, was involved in a traffic accident in his assigned county vehicle on Sheep Island Road. This incident happened Friday night. The South Carolina Highway Patrol responded to work the wreck and located a liquor bottle at the scene. The deputy was allegedly charged with DUI. We say “allegedly” because at the moment there is no “official” record of the charge and even the local media has been stymied in their efforts to obtain the information.

We have been told WCBD News got wind of the arrest and started poking around on Saturday. Their efforts to elicit information from BCSO and SCHP were met with evasion. We have come to expect that sort of behavior from BCSO, but we find the reluctance of the Highway Patrol to divulge information in the case rather odd and highly inconsistent with their past behavior. SCHP certainly does not mind releasing details when officers from Goose Creek, Mt. Pleasant, Charleston, North Charleston or Charleston County Sheriff’s Department are charged with DUI.

In this article about a Trooper being arrested for DUI and immediately fired, SCHP commander Col. Kenny Lancaster says “he’s spoken to every trooper about what will and will not be tolerated”. Good to know. Apparently the standard for SCHP in Berkeley County is to evade questions from the media.

The deputy said to be involved in this DUI incident is one we have written about before. He is said to be the cause of conflict between BCSO and 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson. That conflict was precipitated when the deputy was accused of suborning perjury among BCSO detention officers set to testify in a death penalty trial. Wilson was highly peeved that her attempts to have Colin Broughton sentenced to death were thwarted by the actions of this deputy. The penalty phase of the trial ended in a mistrial and the defendant was sentenced to life in prison.

As in almost every case involving wrong-doing at BCSO, the subsequent SLED investigation into the charge of suborning perjury went nowhere. In spite of that, Sheriff DeWitt saw fit to demote the deputy from the rank of lieutenant to the rank of sergeant. Scarlett Wilson also notified BCSO and the courts the deputy would never, ever, in a million years, be qualified to testify in any court proceeding.

That persona non grata declaration should have been the kiss of the death to any law enforcement career. Instead, Sheriff DeWitt gave the now useless deputy a desk job handing out permits so folks could comply with the Copper Theft Bill signed into law in 2011. Par for the course out there.

We have been told WCBD plans to file the usual FOIA requests in an effort to get the details regarding this incident, but we all know how FOIAs are handled in Berkeley County. Local “news” outlets have even complained to us that their FOIA requests to BCSO are met with delays and lack of information. We are curious to see what a FOIA to SCHP turns up. Maybe the Governor would be interested to know her public safety folks also dodged requests for details of this incident from WCBD.

Is there something in the water out there in Berkeley County that infects everyone assigned there? BCSO operates in an unaccountable fashion reminiscent of Boss Hogg and has for decades. SLED agents either fail to investigate or fail to find anyone criminally liable in cases involving the introduction of blow jobs, narcotics and contraband into the jail, suborning perjury, stealing property from suspects, using inmate labor for personal projects, and any number of a variety of other offenses. Now they seem to have drawn the South Carolina Highway Patrol into the web of deception.

We were also told last week that Hill-Finklea Detention Center is still understaffed and operating with only four detention officers per shift - one supervisor and three detention officers. They had to move the maximum security inmates to another area of the jail because of all the holes in the walls.

You gotta wonder when and if the feds are ever going to step in. DeWitt better hope none of his white deputies have to shoot a black man or his whole house of cards will come tumbling down when the subsequent hordes of DOJ investigators roll into town afterwards.