THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996                 TAG: 9603150011
SECTION: COMMENTARY               PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   52 lines

INVESTIGATION OF CHESAPEAKE POLICE ENDED TOO LITTLE KNOWN

Crimes and politics in Chesapeake often have weird twists to them.

Last year a vice mayor resigned amid allegations he had abused his position on behalf of a woman with whom he had developed a personal relationship. He had helped her get city benefits for her husband, a former policeman, whom she'd shot twice. The councilman resigned.

This go-around, a police captain's son is charged with grand larceny in the theft of the current vice mayor's all-terrain vehicle. It was recovered but later stolen again and remains missing, as is the original police report on the matter.

In a separate case, a city councilman's son and a sheriff's captain's son are charged with receiving goods stolen from a car dealership.

In both criminal cases, roughly a year passed between the crimes and arrests, leading to suspicions that top officials' sons received special treatment.

Police handled neither case routinely. After an internal police investigation, five Chesapeake officers were reprimanded for failure to follow department policy, and police Chief Ian M. Shipley Jr. issued a report that City Council found inadequate.

The FBI was asked to investigate but said the matter was not in its jurisdiction. State police, after reviewing information received from City Council, said the matter was administrative, not criminal, and declined to get involved.

Last week, Circuit Court Chief Judge Russell I. Townsend Jr. said he saw no reason for impaneling a grand jury to investigate, though he added that anyone with information about any criminal action by police should notify the commonwealth's attorney.

On Tuesday, Mayor William E. Ward declared council's inquiry into the Chesapeake Police Department officially over. None of the other councilmen demanded more answers.

But what happened during the police investigations? Council doesn't know and neither does the public, though council presumably knows more than the little it has told the public.

If the cases come to trial later this year, more might be learned about the burglaries. But the defendants may enter pleas, in which case no trials would be held. And the police's procedures presumably will not be on trial even if the cases go to jury.

Only knowledge can dispel the cloud of suspicion hanging over the Chesapeake Police Department. Council cannot wish the cloud away. by CNB