Bredesen seeks long-term changes at Highway Patrol
Bredesen acknowledges that the short-term focus will remain on Tuesday’s resignation of the Highway Patrol commander and Thursday’s scheduled release of a report about 48 troopers with criminal records.
But after that, he said, more attention needs to be paid to the management approach at the Highway Patrol and at the state Department of Safety, which oversees the troopers.
“This is going to be a painful for everybody, but we’re going to come out of this on the other side with what has really been a really long-standing problem fixed,” Bredesen said. “And I’ll be very proud when that happens.”
The Highway Patrol, Tennessee’s top traffic enforcement agency, has been under fire amid allegations of political favoritism and corruption. Current and former troopers have said political pressure, campaign donations and a culture of favors for the powerful have dominated the THP for decades.
Bredesen and Safety Commissioner Fred Phillips have said the patrol’s exemption from oversight by the state Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Commission is one source of its troubles. The commission establishes and enforces standards for state law enforcement.
Without that oversight, troopers have been allowed “to operate more fluidly” than other state law enforcement officers ? and with negative consequences, Bredesen said.
Bredesen last week ordered the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to perform background checks on all 855 troopers and found that 48 of them had criminal charges in their background ranging from larceny and assault to driver’s license suspensions.
He also turned over to the TBI an internal audit from five years ago that revealed crimes by the troopers, including trading ticket fixing for liquor and food.
Col. Lynn Pitts, the Highway Patrol commander, was forced to resign Tuesday after he allegedly violated state law by trying to purchase a boat seized by troopers and put up for sale as surplus state property.
Senate Transportation Chairman Mark Norris has scheduled a Tuesday hearing on the Highway Patrol. While unsure about the specific changes that the committee will call for, the Collierville Republican said he is confident that “it’s going to mean more legislative oversight.”
Former Safety Commissioner Mike Greene said recent problems for the department should not translate into more legislative control.
“The executive branch manages the departments and the legislative branch is designed to create laws,” said Greene. “And it should stay that way.”
Greene, who was commissioner at the time of TBI’s internal audit of troopers, said he did not see endemic corruption at the department he ran from 1994 to 2002.
“The THP and the Department of Safety have a tremendous amount of real good employees, and what has happened is one or two things has gone wrong and kind of put a cloud over the entire department,” he said.
The Tennessean newspaper reported last month that two-thirds of trooper promotions under the Bredesen administration went to officers who gave money to the governor’s campaign, or had family members or political patrons who did.
Bredesen has said he wasn’t involved in ordering promotions based on contributions and said the perception of politically motivated promotions may prevent the best candidates from applying and committing themselves to careers in the department.
Phillips, the current commissioner and a former commander of the Highway Patrol, acknowledged that “it’s always been known there were political ties.”
But Phillips said applicants had to pass screening and training before being hired, no matter who their references were and said he “wasn’t aware of anything you would call corruption.”
Bredesen met with Phillips on Tuesday to discuss the Pitts resignation and changes at the department. At a press conference before the meeting, Bredesen declined to express his full confidence in Phillips until the TBI investigations are complete.
Whatever changes are made at the Highway Patrol and the Department of Safety, Bredesen said he wants to make sure they stick.
“I’d like to change it in a way that the change has got some legs,” he said, “so it’s not as long as I’m watching it as a hawk everything is fine, but the moment you turn your attention to something else, it goes back to the way it is.”
‘
On the Net:
Tennessee Department of Safety: http://www.state.tn.us/safety