Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994                   TAG: 9403230125
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER and KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

3 FINALISTS NAMED IN TOWN POLICE CHIEF SEARCH|

Acting Chief of Police William Brown, a 23-year veteran of the department, is among the finalists.

The other two, Town Manager Ron Secrist said, are:

Charles Bennett Jr., a Richmond deputy chief with 26 years experience, and;

Hines Smith, the chief of police in Bellevue, Neb., and a 29-year veteran of police work.

"I think all three individuals have had progressive experience, all three have had experience in a university setting ... all three have achieved distinction in their careers," Secrist said.

The three will come to Blacksburg for interviews, tours and meetings with citizens, employees and town department heads later this month. Secrist said he hopes to make a hire in April.

"I am gratified to be one of the final finalists," Brown said Friday.

Brown has been acting chief since Jan. 1 when Chief Don Carey left to become chief of the Independence, Mo., Police Department.

Brown said morale has been good at the department and he has received good comments from the community and other law enforcement agencies.

"I've heard no negatives," he said. Brown has been a captain of the department since 1986. He served as interim chief before Carey arrived.

"But however it goes, the people of the town of Blacksburg have my loyalty," Brown said. "I wouldn't be bitter."

Smith, 49, said he wants to move to Blacksburg to be closer to his mother in High Point, N.C., where he served on the police force for 15 years. He also wants to retire here.

"When I retire I don't want to be an outsider moving in," he said. "This would absolutely be my last move."

Plus, he said, "moving to a place like Blacksburg would definitely be a step up from a metropolitan area." Bellevue, with a police force of 40, is a suburb of Omaha, a city of more than 300,000.

His ability, he claims, is not lessened by the fact that he was suspended without pay for 45 days in 1992, after he cashed a $1,000 check donated to an anti-drug program and kept the money in his desk drawer until city officials asked him about it. Smith said at the time that he didn't use any of the money and it lay in his desk drawer until he gave it to DARE, Drug Abuse Resistance Education. He was found not guilty of theft in connection with the incident.

In a written statement at the time of his suspension, he said, "It was the dumbest damned thing I ever did." Asked about it Friday, he described the situation as "an unfortunate situation that escalated to a snowball."

He said that Bellevue's city administrator trusts him, and that the suspension was one of the first things he mentioned in discussions with Secrist.

"I don't think that will be a stumbling block," he said.

Bennett, the Richmond candidate, could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.