At an embattled State Agency, Public Safety nominee hopes to restore trust

By RICK BRUNDRETT - rbrundrett@thestate.com

As a young SLED agent, Mark Keel carried a card entitled, “Credo Rights of Suspects.”

The card — the brainchild of the late J.P. “Pete” Strom, legendary State Law Enforcement Division chief — read:

• Make sure a person is guilty before you affect his reputation, his freedom or his pocketbook.

• Make sure that during your investigation you always assure yourself that you are the fairest juror a suspect will ever have.

• Remember — you do not make facts; you discover and report them.

The 50-year-old Keel, who has been with SLED for nearly 29 years, says if he becomes the next director of the state Department of Public Safety, he’ll seriously consider requiring state troopers to carry similar cards.

“It’s a reminder as an officer, knowing where we stand,” Keel said last week in his first extensive interview since Gov. Mark Sanford nominated him April 16. “It’s kind of like your mom looking over your shoulder.”

If confirmed by the S.C. Senate, Keel — now one of two SLED assistant chiefs — will take over a department that has been rocked by allegations of trooper misconduct toward motorists and lenient punishments for those actions.

Sanford on Feb. 29 forced the resignations of department director James Schweitzer and Highway Patrol commander Col. Russell Roark, contending they should have fired a white trooper who made a racial slur while threatening to kill a fleeing black suspect during a 2004 Greenwood County traffic stop.

Keel says he wants to restore confidence in the department, which includes the Highway Patrol, the State Transport Police and the Bureau of Protective Services. The patrol has been the subject of most of the controversy.

“The public today does not have the confidence it had with this agency six months ago,” he said. “The guys and women who wear the gray are just as upset by what they are seeing. ... Their integrity is at stake.”

Keel, who has never worked at Public Safety, stressed he doesn’t believe the patrol, with its 955 troopers, “is a bad agency.”

“Any time you’ve got an agency that large, you’re going to get a small percentage of people who break the rules,” he said. “Unfortunately, it makes everyone look bad.”

Still, Keel, who describes himself as a “pretty strict disciplinarian,” said he was bothered after watching several videos in which troopers were accused of using excessive force against suspects.

“Every officer knows when the fight is over, it’s over,” said Keel, who has been a helicopter pilot, SWAT team member, hostage negotiator and staff attorney while at SLED.

Confirmation hearings for Keel before the Senate Judiciary Committee are set to begin the week of May 19.

Keel’s biggest challenge will be choosing a new Highway Patrol commander, “somebody he knows he can trust ... and somebody the troopers can respect,” said Jeff Moore, executive director of the S.C. Sheriffs’ Association.

Asked last week if he expected Keel to be confirmed, Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said: “Based on what I know at this point, yes; all of it could be changed by how he answers the questions.”

Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, a member of the Legislative Black Caucus — which has been critical of the Public Safety department’s leadership in recent years — also had a favorable first impression.

“At this point, I don’t see any major, alarming problems,” said Jackson, also a Judiciary Committee member.

TOUGH QUESTIONS

But Lonnie Randolph, president of the state NAACP chapter, said last week he wants to know more about the role SLED played in some investigations into trooper misconduct that did not result in criminal charges.

“I am concerned that some of the complaints that had been reviewed by SLED earlier did not raise red flags,” Randolph said.

“There is no justification to use a car, when a person is running away ahead of you, as a weapon,” Randolph said, referring to a 2007 Greenwood County incident in which a white trooper struck with his patrol car a black suspect fleeing on foot.

SLED investigated that case; 8th Circuit Solicitor Jerry Peace declined to prosecute.

After becoming SLED’s first black chief in March, Reggie Lloyd quickly announced his agency would look into various allegations against troopers, including the 2007 Greenwood County incident. The FBI, the U.S. attorney for South Carolina and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also are conducting investigations.

As chief of staff and agency attorney under SLED Chief Robert Stewart, who stepped down in November, Keel said he was involved in reviewing various investigations into trooper misconduct.

But SLED’s role is to conduct interviews and collect and analyze evidence, he said, not to make prosecutorial recommendations.

Still, Keel acknowledged that SLED did not refer some of the most controversial trooper cases to federal authorities, even though the agency has done so in the past with alleged misconduct cases involving other police agencies.

“I’m not making any excuses,” he said, “but ask (Lloyd) or any federal prosecutor: to make those cases in federal court is more difficult.”

Keel also might face some questioning from senators over his firing of three black SLED agents in December and January while he was interim chief.

He confirmed that one agent — William R. Gourdine, 44, of Columbia — was fired for taking cash to protect a video poker operation. Gourdine recently pleaded guilty to a federal charge and is awaiting sentencing.

In the other two cases, Keel declined to identify the agents but said one of them was fired after he admitted lying about a minor, on-duty traffic crash.

The other agent, a probationary employee, was fired for refusing to cooperate with police and flunking a SLED-administered lie detector test about his involvement in a “scuffle” at a Summerville bar, Keel said.

None of the fired agents appealed his discipline, he said, though he noted the probationary employee didn’t have that option.

“If all three had been white, they’d all still have been fired,” he said. “What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. And right and wrong don’t have a color.”

Most of the disciplinary cases Keel dealt with at SLED involved white agents, he said.

‘TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE’

Keel said “two things will get you fired at SLED quicker than anything else” — drunken driving and lying.

“An officer’s integrity is all he’s got,” he said. “When you’re called to the stand and affect people’s freedom, you have to be above reproach.”

But Keel couldn’t give an immediate answer when asked whether, if he had been the Public Safety director, he would have fired some troopers seen in videos using possibly excessive force.

“It’s going to be difficult to sit in there and answer all questions about a videotape without knowing all of the facts,” he said.

Still, he said, the behavior of a white trooper seen on tape repeatedly kicking the head of a white truck driver lying on the ground in Sumter County in 2006 following a long chase was “totally unacceptable.”

Although SLED investigated that case, 12th Circuit Solicitor Ed Clements declined to pursue charges against then-Lance Cpl. John B. Sawyer, who resigned amid an internal investigation.

Keel also said he had “concerns” about two other videos from separate 2007 incidents. They showed Lance Cpls. S.C. Garren and Alexander Richardson hitting with their patrol cars suspects fleeing on foot. Garren, who is heard on tape saying he intended to hit the suspect, was suspended for two days. Richardson got a letter of reprimand.

Sanford was right, Keel said, in calling for the firing of Lance Cpl. Daniel C. Campbell — the racial slur case that led to the ouster of Schweitzer and Roark. Campbell received a letter of reprimand and counseling.

“At this time, when we’re working to make racial relations good, I just don’t think you can find that acceptable,” Keel said. “If you say it’s OK that he said that, then if someone does it the next time and does it a little bit differently, where do you draw the line?”

CHIEF AMBITION

Barnwell County Sheriff Ed Carroll grew up with Keel, his first cousin.

“I’ve never met anybody who’s more dedicated to law enforcement ... I can’t remember any time that he didn’t want to be in law enforcement.”

Keel “is not going to lead from the back row,” said Stewart, his former boss.

In the 1990s, Keel attended USC’s law school while still working full time at SLED. A supervisor, Keel voluntarily demoted himself to night desk duty to attend classes during the day.

Keel said he wanted to get his law degree to better position himself to one day be SLED chief. But to the surprise of many in the law enforcement community, Sanford in January tapped Lloyd instead.

“I was disappointed,” Keel said, “but life goes on. ...

“I told the governor I respected him and I respected his decision. ... Maybe they need me worse right now at DPS.”

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.