Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
These are problems as common as they are sad, and there are well-thought-out methods of coping available for the asking of the right person or pamphlet.
But what do you do, how do you react, and how do you cope when your friend is indicted by a federal grand jury? When your friend, if convicted, faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and decades in federal prison?
Put yourself in that position, and you've begun to imagine the tough emotional quandary faced now by Kevin Meredith's friends.
Kevin works for the Roanoke County Police Department, though last week he was suspended from his position as a policy analyst. He's not a cop; he's a county worker within the Police Department - and a highly praised worker, too.
When John Cease, then the chief of police in Morgantown, W.Va., was hired to create the Roanoke County Police Department, he had to start from scratch.
He had to hire office staff and police officers. He had to write the department's regulations. And he had to make it all work - on the street.
The seventh person he hired was Kevin, who'd worked with Cease in Morgantown as an intern.
Now 32, Kevin was hired to help write department policy. It's not a job many people would want, nor excel at.
Meredith did both. Professionally, he earned broad praise. The policies he helped develop were one of the reasons the Police Department was accredited last year by a national organization - the first department in Southwest Virginia to earn the seal of approval.
And he made a lot of friends. Muscular, single and blond, Meredith is endowed with unquestionable charm.
With the looks of Tom Cruise and the physique of prizefighter Tommy Morrison, he's managed to get himself embroiled in the mischief of Tom Sawyer.
To his circle of friends, among whom I'm counted, Meredith has been a constant amusement. Well-educated - with a master's degree in public administration - and articulate, Meredith maintained always a healthy ability to get himself into a never-ending series of minor jams with women and cars and apartments and food.
Often his efforts to extricate himself from awkward positions only managed to get him into worse binds. Many of us, married and rutted in family routines, drew some vicarious mirth from Meredith's misadventures.
Always at the root of his imbroglios was his admission: He'd handled it poorly, or put himself, once again, behind the eight ball because he wasn't thinking.
Now Meredith is caught in a misadventure writ large and damned serious.
A federal grand jury believes there's enough evidence to formally accuse Meredith of operating a business to distribute steroids - the drug illegally used by athletes to bulk their physiques.
It's a nasty charge, with serious consequences, and it put Meredith's friends in a nasty bind.
"Not fun," is how John Cease understates it. It was Cease's job to suspend Meredith, to hear his side at a Friday hearing and this week to rule on Meredith's job status within the department. It's a sensitive task. Meredith is innocent of the charges until proven otherwise.
In about two weeks, Meredith will be arraigned in West Virginia.
Other cops who participated in the internal investigation - none eager to be quoted - were wrenched and left gasping by this emotional blow.
They're doing their professional duties. That's department policy.
But what of the personal duties?
Where is that written?
by CNB