Civil Service witnesses say Dent was ‘difficult to reach’|[10/21/06]
Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 21, 2006
Witness after witness testified Friday before the Civil Service Commission that a former Vicksburg police officer was “difficult to reach” by phone and radio while his patrol car was parked near a woman’s trailer in south Warren County months ago.
But the attorney for Sgt. Adarryll Dent, fired in September for what city officials said was a failure by the supervisor to fulfill his duties, argued none of the city’s nine witnesses could prove Dent was acting inappropriately while on duty on U.S. 61 South.
The commission is a three-person council appointed by the Vicksburg Mayor and Board of Aldermen charged with keeping politics out of hirings, firings, promotions and transfers in police and fire departments.
If the panel decides any decision was not related to job performance, decisions of city officials may be modified or reversed. Rulings may be appealed to Warren County Circuit Court.
A decision by the commission is expected in 10 days, its chairman said Friday.
“We have an allegation that Mr. Dent was visiting residents on Bayou Boulevard while on the clock,” Ramel Cotton of Jackson said. “Out of nine witnesses, what you don’t have is testimony that he was actually in this residence.”
Indeed, none of the witnesses could say whether Dent was inside the Bayou Boulevard home of a former girlfriend, with whom he fathered a child. But several, including Lt. Bobby Stewart, told commissioners they saw Dent’s patrol car parked at or near the woman’s trailer several times between January and March.
“I started monitoring Dent’s activities on (computer-aided dispatch) and began monitoring radio traffic more closely,” Stewart said. “I found that officers had to call him two or three times, and he would ask officers to call him on his private phone instead of on the radio.”
However, Stewart and others acknowledged during Cotton’s cross-examination that hand-held police radios and city-issued cell phones are unreliable because of bad coverage in areas along U.S. 61 South. But, they said, stationary radios in patrol cars don’t have the same problem.
That doesn’t matter, Cotton argued, because Dent was conducting surveillance on and around Bayou Boulevard and officers could, in fact, reach him within minutes if necessary.
“He was shift commander and patrolling this area more often,” Cotton said. “He used innovative surveillance tactics after he was instructed to increase patrols, and he parked his car (on Bayou Boulevard) and walked to other areas. All you have from witnesses are assumptions.”
During a 125-minute testimony by Dent, the former cop said those tactics include undercover foot patrols in the woods between Ameristar’s trailer park near U.S. 61 South and nearby Shamrock Apartments on Belva Drive. They also include conducting surveillance on roof tops and slithering on the ground using trash bags to minimize noise, Dent said.
Associate City Attorney Walterine Langford laughed off those remarks.
“He stated that he was on foot patrol, but nobody saw him,” she said. “He didn’t call dispatchers and tell them where he was. Why was he there? His girlfriend was there.”
None of the witnesses, though, mentioned the unidentified woman, including Police Chief Tommy Moffett. He and Stewart told commissioners they didn’t know who lived in the trailer Dent has been accused of frequenting until March 9, when a juvenile, accused of peering into a window at the same trailer, was arrested.
Dent said Stewart gave him permission to enter the home to check on his asthmatic son, now 8, and repair the child’s medical device.
“Most of the time, I would call and check on him,” Dent said. “And even though I went to check on him, I was never out of my (patrol) area.”
But Dent’s visits lasted longer than supervisors expected, Stewart said, and video surveillance showed the officer’s patrol car inside the trailer park for one to three hours each time.
Specifically, Stewart said, Dent’s car was seen on Bayou Boulevard Feb. 23, Feb. 24, March 8 and March 13.
“He said he didn’t think he had been there that long,” Stewart said of Dent after being told he was being suspended for 30 days without pay. “And he didn’t think he was inaccessible and requested the suspension be reduced to 10 days.”
Moffett said Dent deserved a stiffer punishment, and recommended such to the Vicksburg Mayor and Board of Aldermen Sept. 5, after reviewing the officer’s personnel file.
“I talked to Dent on several occasions about his shortcomings, but he would never admit he had shortcomings,” Moffett said. “After reviewing his file, I made a separate recommendation: 30 days suspension and I added the demotion and reimbursement to the city of (eight hours’ pay).”
Langford asked Moffett if he knew of Dent’s personal “circumstances.”
“I really wasn’t concerned about circumstances,” he said. “He had an excuse for everything from here to Jackson. I wasn’t very sympathetic, to be honest with you.”
And the chief’s patience grew thin, he said, after listening to Dent’s remarks before city officials in the Sept. 5 hearing.
“When I started hearing these things, I thought I was wasting my time by trying to save his job. So I did not disagree with the board’s decision.”
Moffett, along with Stewart, also testified Dent did not have authorization, as is department policy, to conduct his own personal surveillance around Bayou Boulevard. Still, Moffett wasn’t buying the surveillance story.
“Dent has not denied being at the house, and this stuff about him sneaking around and wearing bags is the first time I’ve heard it,” the chief said. “It makes no sense to me. I don’t believe it at all.”
Making personal visits while on the clock was not the only charge city officials brought against Dent. Langford also said he encouraged desk clerk Tamisha Simms to lie to his wife as to the whereabouts of Moffett.
“He knew there was a problem and rather than dealing with the problem, he asked her to lie,” Langford said. “He has shown here today there is no saving grace.”
A digital recording of separate telephone conversations between Dent and Simms showed Dent asked the clerk to tell his wife, if she came to the police department to talk to Moffett about his “pending discipline,” to tell her the chief was with the Grand Jury all week.
In the first conversation, Dent asked to speak to Deputy Chief Richard O’Bannon. But Simms told him neither O’Bannon nor Moffett were available because they “were going to be out” for Grand Jury.
However, Simms admitted neither man had arrived at the police station when she received the call shortly after her shift began at 7 a.m.
The same day, Dent called back and asked Simms to “do him a favor” and tell his wife that Moffett would be unavailable the rest of the week.
“He didn’t ask if they were going to be in,” Simms said. “He just said to tell his wife they’d be out all week.”
Moffett called that a lie because “he was not at Grand Jury.”
But Dent didn’t ask Simms to lie, Cotton said, and asked commissioners not to consider the claim in their deliberations and to overturn his client’s termination.
After eight hours of testimony by Stewart, Investigator Riley Nelson, Moffett, Patrolmen Jason Wood, Gina Carrick and Patrick Flowers, Sgt. Mike Bryant, Simms, Loretta Burnett and Dent, Langford told commissioners city officials’ decision to fire the officer was “fair and just.”