Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991 TAG: 9102090488
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET CAMLIN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
Volunteer police forces are nothing new: both Roanoke and Roanoke County have them. In Roanoke, volunteers direct traffic, accompany officers on patrol and help investigate accidents.
Spence's volunteers will be trained, sworn in, issued guns and asked to handle everything from traffic control to undercover work, surveillance and drug busts - depending on their qualifications, Spence says. Some will be doing office work.
Three of the volunteers could be sworn in and begin limited duties as early as next week.
"The idea is fine in theory," said William Cooper, a lawyer and assistant public defender. "I just worry about making sure people are trained in the rights of suspects."
Cooper said some of the paid deputies are "pretty zealous" in fighting crime, and he wonders if the volunteer deputies will be even more so. "My job is to make sure they stay within the bounds of law."
Lawyer Ellen Arthur said she has no problem with the volunteers serving subpoenas or directing traffic.
"But don't arm them, deputize them and send them out to do delicate, discretionary-type work that's dangerous to the public and to the officer," Arthur said. "It has great potential for abuse."
One lawyer worries that the volunteer force could become some sort of morality patrol.
Spence, an avowed Christian, has been known to take jail inmates to church revivals.
The lawyer, who asked not to be named, expressed concern about Spence's "Christian, religious agenda" and the fact that he has "almost unlimited power and discretion in terms of enforcing the law or not enforcing it."
Certain laws - against fornication, homosexuality or public drunkenness, for example - could be enforced in the interest of cleaning up sin in the county, the lawyer said.
Spence said this is ridiculous. "We don't make judgments. Whatever the law is, that's what we go by," he said. "I've got enough criminals out here [to catch] instead of looking for demented people."
Spence brushes aside the other worries as well. He is highly confident of the eight men and one woman he has chosen so far.
"These are qualified people; these aren't vendetta people," he said. "These are conscientious family people who want to make our community a better place to live."
Rockbridge County Supervisor Daniel Snider is questioning who will serve on the force and why.
"Most people are going to be pretty good people," Snider said, adding that he realizes Spence will check the background of each applicant. "But it leaves a loophole for somebody who has an ax to grind to work his way" onto the force and eventually seek revenge.
Another local lawyer wondered: "What would motivate a civilian to donate that amount of time to train and work for free? Is that the kind of motivation you want in a policeman that's carrying a gun and has the same authority as a deputy has?"
The motivation was plain for Chuck Seelke, a campus policeman at Virginia Military Institute and a 1989 graduate of Radford University.
Seelke, who majored in criminal justice, volunteered "to get more experience in the field of police work," he said. He hopes the work will boost his chances of getting a job as a police officer or deputy.
Another volunteer is Robert Bolling, embalmer and manager of Lomax Funeral Home, who also is president of the Buena Vista Fire Department. Bolling applied after reflecting on what happened to his friend Jerry Hines, a state trooper who was shot and killed two years ago by a man whose stolen car he stopped on Interstate 81.
Hines was driving alone. "I always believed if he'd had someone in his car with him, it wouldn't have happened," Bolling said.
The auxiliary force also includes a former Marine Corps officer, a farmer, a former county dog warden and a former administrative assistant in the commonwealth's attorney's office.
Many people agree with Spence that 15 deputies, including two bailiffs, are not enough officers for the 602-square-mile county. However, with a population of 18,350, Rockbridge has one officer per 1,223 people. That is well within the state law that requires at least one deputy for every 2,000 people.
Spence believes the state will not increase funding for sheriff's departments for at least two years, so the only way to expand is with unpaid officers. Spence hopes to increase the force to between 10 and 15 volunteers, who would be required to work at least eight hours a month.
Spence said the volunteers will be closely supervised. The quality of their training seems to be the main concern among lawyers.
"Are they going to be properly trained to function effectively . . . [and] to respect the constraints under which they operate?" asked lawyer Laurence Mann.
The sheriff's department cannot afford to train volunteers as well as it trains its regular deputies, said Kenneth Moore, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
But Spence said his volunteers ultimately will be trained as well as paid deputies. It is not required, but the three who could be sworn in next week already are certified by the Central Shenandoah Criminal Justice Center, the academy that trains regular deputies.
Volunteers must complete 70 hours of training in constitutional law, civil liability, defensive tactics, firearms and other subjects. All training will be done by the department's six certified instructors.
Volunteers who accompany regular officers on patrol will be trained for an extra 60 hours. By contrast, Spence's paid deputies must complete 480 hours of training over the course of a year.
Concerns about the new volunteer force are not the first to be raised about Spence's sometimes unorthodox management style.
In January 1990, Spence was accused of letting inmate Michael Camden roam free for hours at a time; of deputizing Camden, a felon; of allowing Camden and his wife to have sex in his secretary's office and the jail basement; and of using Camden to intimidate other inmates.
That led the Rockbridge Regional Jail Commission to authorize an investigation into Spence's management of the jail. The investigator's report made no clear accusations of wrongdoing on Spence's part, but it did recommend that the jail hire a separate administrator.
In April, the commission voted to allow Spence to continue as jail administrator until Dec. 31 of this year, when his first term as sheriff ends.
by CNB