ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603250043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER IRON GATE
IRON GATE TOWN COUNCIL voted Friday to put its own police officer on administrative leave without pay for about three weeks.
"I'm having a hell of a week," Iron Gate Police Sgt. Jim Phillips said, shaking his head in the blowing snow outside Iron Gate's town hall.
Wednesday, the lone member of the Iron Gate constabulary was convicted of reckless driving during a police pursuit.
Then he got hauled out of bed at 5 a.m. Thursday when his Roanoke apartment building caught fire.
And then, about half past noon on Friday, things got worse. That's when Iron Gate Mayor Otis Payne stuck his head out the door and called Phillips back in out of the cold.
After 25 minutes in a closed session, Iron Gate Town Council voted unanimously to place its only police officer on administrative leave without pay for about three weeks - until his appeal of the reckless driving charge can be heard on April 11.
Payne called the special meeting of the Town Council after Phillips' reckless driving conviction.
Dennis Dew, a Botetourt County school employee, swore out a warrant against Phillips after a near collision with Phillips on U.S. 220 the morning of March 1. Dew testified that Phillips crossed the double yellow line as he passed a tractor-trailer in a blind curve just north of Gala. He said Phillips missed colliding with him head-on by about 6 feet.
Phillips was chasing someone he believed to be driving on a suspended license, but Judge Louis K. Campbell said while Phillips passed the truck successfully, it wasn't safely. He added that endangering the public over a suspended license violation was not warranted.
Payne said he's had numerous complaints in the past about Phillips' recklessness and zealous approach to police work.
Last year Phillips was criticized for pulling over an ambulance en route to Salem's Veterans' Affairs Medical Center with a possible heart attack victim.
Payne said the other complaints did not come into play in Friday's special meeting, but he noted that the reckless driving conviction "sort of piqued things for us."
"We'll just wait for the appeal," Phillips said after the meeting.
He wasn't terribly concerned about being out of police work for a few weeks. He also runs a real estate business and owns several properties in Roanoke. He used to own the Memorial Avenue apartment building where he lives in Roanoke - the same apartment he got run out of Thursday morning when the building caught fire.
Law enforcement "has always been fun work for me," he said.
Phillips said he graduated from his first police academy 30 years ago. He served as an auxiliary Roanoke police officer for 191/2 years and spent a year each as a police officer in Vinton and Buchanan.
He started enforcing Iron Gate's 35 mph speed limit in December 1994.
Iron Gate might be copless for a while, but don't get any ideas about lead-footing it through town.
The mayor already has arranged for the Alleghany County Sheriff's Office to pick up the crime-busting slack.
"And if the speeding gets too bad," said Vice Mayor Randy Unroe, "well, then, we'll get the state police in here."
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. Iron Gate's only police officerby CNB(right) gets the word Friday from the Town Council that he is
relieved of duty, which happened after he was convicted of reckless
driving and after his apartment building caught fire. color.