ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170029
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
FOURTEEN months after his suspension without pay, and two weeks after his acquittal on rape and sodomy charges, Larry D. Neighbors was back on the job Monday as a deputy with the Roanoke City Sheriff's Department.
He shouldn't be.
Forget the criminal charges, lodged in May 1995 on the basis of claims by Ronlyn Eaton. At a July 1 trial, Circuit Judge Barnard Jennings took the unusual step of dismissing the charges, as well as a sodomy charge against Deputy David K. Bell, even before the defense could offer any of its own rebuttal evidence.
Set aside, too, issues of personal sexual morality among consenting adults. The Roanoke City Jail guards, both married, may have "had no business doing what they did," as Neighbors' attorney put it. But they were not on duty when they met Eaton at a local nightspot. Nor was the Chevrolet Blazer in which they gave her a ride a municipal vehicle. This was never a matter, in other words, of playing loose with the taxpayers' dime.
There remains, however, the matter of playing loose with the truth - with one's own co-workers, in the process of an official investigation of criminal charges, by someone employed in law enforcement.
In the department's internal probe after Eaton made her allegations, Neighbors initially denied ever seeing the woman. He admitted otherwise only after learning that Bell had acknowledged they had met her and given her a ride.
Neighbors' denial was no trivial fib. It came in the course of an investigation into serious charges that, at best, promised to embarrass the department, and at worst implicated Neighbors in a felony. What might reasonably be called stupidity, on the evidence, was thus compounded by duplicity.
That ought to be harder for any employer to overlook, because duplicity strikes at the trust and teamwork on which good working relationships depend. It ought to be even harder for the Sheriff's Department to overlook, because the work there involves potential physical danger and the routine exercise of coercive authority. Both aspects of the job make trust among colleagues all the more essential.
More to the point, Neighbors' job is part of law enforcement, a legitimate application of which his lie attempted to obstruct. The Sheriff's Department serves and is accountable to the public. It contributes to the reputation of law-enforcement authorities generally. It shouldn't have to retain Neighbors on the payroll.
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