WRIGHT DENIES COMMISSIONER GOT SPECIAL BREAK

Shelby County sheriff's deputies had discovered crack pipes in Michael
Hooks's office and were considering a search for drugs when the county
commissioner picked up the telephone.

His 1:15 a.m. call woke Bobby Lanier, a top aide to county Mayor Jim
Rout.

Lanier, in turn, woke Don Wright, chief deputy for the Sheriff's
Department.

Within minutes, Wright was on the phone to Hooks as deputies stood in
his Cooper Street office early March 6.

When the flurry of late night calls ended, according to an examination
by The Commercial Appeal, deputies were instructed by Wright to issue
Hooks a misdemeanor citation and get on their way. There was to be no
search of the premises.

Wright, the department's second-in-command, insisted the politically
connected Hooks didn't get special treatment.

A search would have meant overtime for the officers and wasted
taxpayers' money, he said, and in all likelihood would have turned up
only a small amount of drugs - or none at all.

"If I'd been trying to help Michael Hooks, I would've told them to all
get in their cars and go home," Wright said.

Wright, who plans to run for sheriff next year, said any talk of the
commissioner being given a break is politically motivated.

"If it wasn't for the election, we wouldn't even be talking about
this," he said.

Deputies went to 993 S. Cooper early March 6 with an arrest warrant
for Hooks's son, Michael Hooks Jr., on a Jackson, Tenn., traffic
charge. The 26-year-old Hooks lives in an apartment attached to his
father's business.

They didn't find Hooks Jr., a Memphis school board member, but found
his 50-year-old father, who met them outside, telling them his son
wasn't home.

When they went to an upstairs apartment to see for themselves,
deputies reported finding an assortment of crack pipes, steel wool and
two pots of water boiling on the stove.

Boiling water is used to convert powder cocaine to crack cocaine that
can be smoked.

After finding cocaine residue on a pipe and the boiling water,
deputies called Lt. Mark Dunbar of narcotics and talked about getting
a search warrant.

But Dunbar said he hadn't even gotten to the scene to assess the
situation when Wright called.

"Chief Wright told me what to do," Dunbar said. "His statement to me
was that everything involved, the paraphernalia, a small amount of
residue, indicated a user, not a trafficker.

"And we're after people who are narcotics traffickers," Dunbar
said.

After that conversation, Wright said, a search warrant

was ruled out as too costly and likely unproductive.

A search team would have had to work overtime, fugitive squad officers
would have been held past their shift, and the Hooks property wasn't
known as a house where anyone was buying or selling drugs, Wright said.

"It was just not a wise use of taxpayers' dollars," Wright said. "With
nothing other than paraphernalia there, it was a judgment call."

Neither Wright nor Dunbar knew about the boiling water that deputies
found until the next day.

Had more than a half-gram of powder cocaine been found, Hooks could
have been charged with a felony: possession of cocaine with intent to
sell.

He was given a misdemeanor citation for possession of drug
paraphernalia.

Law enforcement officers often stumble upon drug paraphernalia during
other kinds of searches - as on the night officers were looking for
Michael Hooks Jr. - and it's not unusual for them to issue a citation
without embarking on an in-depth search for drugs, Wright said.

Both Lanier, Rout's executive assistant, and Wright said Lanier did no
lobbying.

Lanier insists he merely relayed a telephone message from his longtime
friend to Wright because the commissioner didn't have the number.

"He knew I would have the number, I guess," Lanier
said.

Still, Lanier said he had no idea why the commissioner was calling
department brass in the middle of the night.

"I didn't know what it was about or nothing else," Lanier said. "I
didn't know what it was about until the next day and found out what
was involved."

However, Wright said Lanier did slightly more than pass along a
generic phone message.

"He called me and told me that our deputies were at Michael Hooks's
house," Wright said.

But Wright is adamant that Lanier didn't try to intervene.

"You don't know Bobby Lanier very well, do you?" he said. "He would
not even attempt to mind our business."

Lanier was one of two county officials put on probation in 1994 for
using prison inmates to cater a political fund-raiser for their
then-boss, Mayor Bill Morris.

Both were put in a diversion program that later wiped their records
clean.

Since the night of the citation, Hooks has entered a drug
rehabilitation program. He plans to keep his commission seat.

The commissioner's attorney, A C Wharton, couldn't be reached for
comment.

Hooks's drug charge will be dismissed if he successfully completes
drug treatment, Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons said.