ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606240044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
Iron Gate's controversial cop may very well have just become Iron Gate's last cop.
Jim Phillips tendered his resignation Thursday night to Town Council, which at the same meeting adopted a resolution asking the General Assembly to alter the town's charter and abolish its one-man constabulary.
But even if Phillips had not resigned, outgoing Iron Gate Mayor Otis Payne made it clear the ax would have fallen anyway. He said there was a consensus on council that Phillips needed to go.
Phillips says the whole thing smells of a grudge against him by Payne.
Phillips, the scourge of even the slightest speeders in the tiny Alleghany County town on U.S. 220, seemed to kick up a cloud of controversy every time he mashed the accelerator of his police cruiser.
He was criticized last year for pulling over an ambulance carrying a heart patient. Phillips says the patient was only being transported from one hospital to another, so it was not an emergency.
He has received frequent attention lately for his March conviction on a reckless driving charge. Phillips crossed a double yellow line and nearly collided head-on with an oncoming car, according to testimony in Botetourt Circuit Court. That case is in its second appeal.
And, Payne says, Phillips has been generally "scaring the daylights" out of Iron Gate's citizenry since he took the job in December 1994.
Phillips agreed to resign effective July 31, which will allow him to complete a police academy course already paid for by the town. He will receive back pay through March 22, when he was placed on administrative leave because of the reckless driving conviction, and pay for his remaining vacation and sick time. State police and the Alleghany County Sheriff's Office will continue to patrol the town.
"We weren't out for blood," said Payne, who will remain on council but will no longer be mayor after June 30. Still, Payne is glad to see Phillips go.
"We hired him to uphold our law, not to break our law," he said.
According to Payne, Phillips could have been dismissed for a number of reasons. Phillips, who lives in Roanoke, did not live up to a clause in his contract that required him to move within 15 miles of the town. The ambulance and reckless driving incidents, coupled with the numerous complaints Payne said he has received, also were grounds for termination, the mayor said.
Payne said he has himself witnessed Phillips nearly running cars off U.S. 220 while pulling a U-turn in pursuit of a speeder.
"He gets his thrills out of chasing cars. He's told me that," Payne said.
That's a statement Phillips categorically denies, though he has said law enforcement "has always been fun work for me."
As for moving within 15 miles of Iron Gate, a copy of the contract supplied by Phillips says he was required to move within the more vague "reasonable distance" of the town limits. That one-year contract expired in November, so Phillips argues he couldn't have violated a contract that was no longer in effect.
The reckless driving charge is on appeal, and would draw no more than a verbal reprimand in any other police department, Phillips said. And making U-turns to start pursuits is part of what any traffic cop does.
"I resigned as a gentleman, so all this would be over and the whole affair put to bed," Phillips said. "And I resent that Mayor Payne is not being a gentleman about it."
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Phillips.by CNB