Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 11, 1993 TAG: 9303110190
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BUCHANAN MAY DROP POLICE
Buchanan may have gone through its last town police officer with the sudden resignation of Scott Beard earlier this week.That was the word Wednesday from Buchanan Town Councilman Tom Middlecamp, chairman of Buchanan's police committee.
"For the town and for everybody, I think it would work out a whole lot better," Middlecamp said of not replacing Beard - and essentially eliminating Buchanan's troubled police force.
Middlecamp said he is confident a long-term agreement can be reached with the Botetourt County Sheriff's Department to compensate for the missing officer.
He and other members of the town's police committee are scheduled to meet with Botetourt Sheriff Reed Kelly on Monday.
Beard resigned Monday, citing personal reasons, after 14 months as the town's lone police officer. He was the seventh town police officer to quit in three years.
Middlecamp said Beard was not asked to resign. However, he had been called to a meeting with the police committee last week to discuss citizen complaints about his "availability."
There were concerns raised that Beard was not always able to respond to police calls when he was supposed to be on call or on duty, Middlecamp said.
A Buchanan native, Beard was hired by Buchanan Town Council in January 1992 after working for seven years with the Roanoke County Sheriff's Department.
His hiring followed the resignations of three part-time town officers, who charged that they were ordered by the town's mayor at the time, C.D. Barger, not to enforce drunken-driving laws.
Jim Phillips, Jim Bryan and Stan Wszolek said they quit for fear of liability in the event that a drunken driver they allowed to stay on the road killed or injured someone.
They charged that Barger ordered them to stop plans to set up a DUI checkpoint in Buchanan. He also told them that if they do arrest any drunken drivers, do so "selectively," they said.
Barger called the charges "a misinterpretation of words." He denied telling them to arrest drunken drivers selectively, and suggested that the officers were too "gung-ho," applying big-city police tactics to a small town where they don't necessarily belong.
The police problems began in Buchanan in 1990 with the resignation of 6-year police chief Harry Hood.
He quit in a dispute with Town Council over taking his patrol car home at night.
His part-time assistant, Lennie Atwood, quit a month after Hood, saying he was not fairly considered to replace Hood as chief.
A third officer, Mike St. Clair, quit in June 1991, the same month the town's police car was vandalized.
Middlecamp said Wednesday that by reaching an agreement with the Sheriff's Department, he hopes to put the last three years of turbulence behind.
In the past, Buchanan police officers have been responsible primarily for parking enforcement, traffic and any disorders within the town limits.
Sheriff's deputies still handled all larcenies, burglaries or other serious crimes. They also assisted town officers when requested.