S.C. Highway Patrol and race | Senate panel to probe how black motorists are treated

By RICK BRUNDRETT - rbrundrett@thestate.com

A special state Senate panel has launched an investigation into problems at the Department of Public Safety in the wake of allegations about how some troopers have treated black motorists.

Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, who led the Senate Judiciary subcommittee meeting Thursday, said information from the five-member panel will be used by the full Judiciary Committee to evaluate Gov. Mark Sanford’s nominee for the department director.

“We want to look and see if the problems are systemic,” said McConnell, the Judiciary Committee chairman and Senate president pro tempore.

The firestorm of controversy has spurred separate investigations by the U.S. attorney for South Carolina, the FBI, the Justice Department and the State Law Enforcement Division.

Sanford has yet to nominate a department director since his Feb. 29 decision that forced the resignations of then-director James Schweitzer and Highway Patrol commander Col. Russell Roark. The Department of Public Safety oversees the Patrol.

Sanford said he felt the men were too lenient in their punishment of a white trooper who made a racial slur against a fleeing black suspect during a 2004 Greenwood County traffic stop.

That incident was captured on the trooper’s squad-car videotape, which was obtained by The State newspaper along with videos of seven other incidents involving mainly white troopers who were investigated about whether they used proper judgment.

In Thursday’s meeting, Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, said the problems at the Department of Public Safety “did not begin with Mr. Schweitzer.”

“What happened was Mr. Schweitzer had never been involved with a traffic-division-type atmosphere,” said Knotts, a former Columbia police officer. “Most of the blame is on the (Highway Patrol) colonel that had been in charge prior to (Schweitzer) getting there.”

Still, Knotts acknowledged that he had pushed for Schweitzer’s confirmation in 2004, mainly because of Schweitzer’s long prior career with the FBI.

Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, said he felt at the time of his nomination that Schweitzer was “designed for that job,” though he added, “Something happened once he got it.”

“If there’s an institutional problem, then we need to find out,” Ford said.

Efforts Thursday to reach Schweitzer or Roark were unsuccessful. Department spokesman Sid Gaulden, who attended the meeting, declined afterward to comment on specifics.

“As with the federal investigations,” Gaulden said, “we welcome this.”

In a memo drafted after the meeting to Senate staff, McConnell outlined a dozen matters to investigate, including obtaining copies of “all pertinent complaint videotapes from the Highway Patrol since 2004.”

“I have heard that there may be as many as 40 tapes,” McConnell said in the memo.

McConnell also directed staff to keep the governor’s office “up-to-date on your progress.”

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said Thursday, “We will defer to them on how they conduct any investigations or probes.”

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.