SHERIFF CANDIDATE IS TRANSFERRED TO THE PATROL DIVISION

Tillman Says Callaghan's Move Was Effort To Fill His Post In Narcotics
Division Left Empty While He Is On Leave

Kyle Callaghan, a Mobile County Sheriff's Department drug investigator,
said he has been transferred from the narcotics division to the patrol
division because he is running for his boss's job.

Callaghan is challenging Sheriff Jack Tillman in the crowded field for the
Republican nomination in the June 4 primary.

Tillman on Thursday denied any retribution and said the move was just a
"paper transfer." He said the department had to fill Callaghan's post while
the deputy is on leave to run for the office.

Callaghan left the Sheriff's Department just before announcing his
candidacy in early March, using vacation time and later taking an unpaid
leave of absence. For the past four years, he has been on special
assignment to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force.

On March 20, the DEA wrote Tillman to inform him that Callaghan could not
be part of the task force because he is running for office, according to a
letter provided to the Mobile Register by the Sheriff's Department.

Tillman wrote Callaghan eight days later, saying he would be transferred to
the patrol division, effective March 30. The sheriff told the Register on
Thursday that the move would not have any practical effect until Callaghan
returns.

Callaghan, responding to an inquiry by the Register, called the transfer a
"political move" and said it is a waste of taxpayer money to put a
specially trained drug investigator into a patrol car. He said he has not
talked about the move in public while campaigning.

The transfer, he said, was posted recently, along with others made
throughout the department.

"I made a decision to run for sheriff, and I knew I would lose my position
as a DEA task force agent," Callaghan said. "It seems like a person who
left the DEA would go to the narcotics division or the detective division."

The move is not a demotion, Callaghan said, but it puts him "back at a
starting point."

"Usually the patrol division is where you first start at," he said.

A 14-year veteran of the department, Callaghan said he started working in
the narcotics division about six years ago. Tillman moved him to the DEA
task force about four years ago. Callaghan became a sworn task force agent,
he said, with all the powers of other federal agents.

"It's an elite position," he said. "You've got to be a good investigator."

Tillman has been accused in the past of retaliating against people who turn
against him politically. During the 1998 primary race, a deputy claimed he
was transferred from the civil division to patrol, in part because he
supported one of Tillman's opponents.

Another deputy's wife claimed her husband was threatened with the same
action if the couple did not remove a sign supporting another opponent. She
said she removed the sign at her husband's request.

Tillman denied those accusations at the time. On Thursday, he scoffed at
the notion that he has retaliated against Callaghan or any other deputies
while he has been sheriff. He transferred Callaghan because he had to fill
the DEA position while Callaghan was gone, he said.

Besides, Tillman said, the move is a formality.

"He's not in patrol, is he?" Tillman asked. "He's running for office."

The sheriff said he will address Callaghan's position in the department
when he returns.

"We might put him in CID (criminal investigations division)," Tillman said.
"He's a deputy. He works wherever we choose to put him. He ought to be
proud to do that."

Tillman said he had not considered leaving Callaghan in the narcotics
division and assigning another deputy to the DEA. Such a move is possible,
said Chief Deputy Mark Barlow, but it is not practical because the
narcotics division is small.

Shane McBryde, the Sheriff's Department spokesman, said Callaghan remains a
deputy sheriff, Class I.

"There certainly has been nothing in the way of demotion," McBryde said.
Callaghan said his salary of about $36,000 would not be affected by the
transfer, but he would earn less in the patrol division, because his
overtime would be restricted. As a task force agent, he said, the DEA paid
for his overtime, which amounted to about $10,000 a year before taxes.

Callaghan was running second in the GOP race for sheriff, according to a
recent Register-University of South Alabama poll, but trailed Tillman by 35
percentage points.

The Republican primary race features a total of seven candidates. Two men
are seeking the Democratic nomination.

Besides Tillman and Callaghan, the other candidates in the GOP primary are:
Gerald Deas, John Graham, Tommy Menton, Murdock Thomas Sr. and Clint Ulmer.
Harry Bachus Jr. and James Mayo are fighting for the Democratic nomination.

Callaghan has touted his experience as a drug investigator on the campaign
trail, talking in part about an investigation into a drug smuggling ring
connected to a local day care.

The target was a group of people connected to the Wee Care Daycare Learning
Center, who smuggled more than two tons of marijuana from Houston to Mobile
over about five years, according to federal indictments and evidence
presented at trial. Twenty-three people have been charged; of those, 20
have been convicted, so far.

The case was nominated for case of the year by the local U.S. attorney's
office, Callaghan said.

Tillman also has campaigned on his department's success in battling drugs.
In February, he said, his department seized $2.9 million in drugs and
property in 2001, which he said was a record. He included the Wee Care case
as one of the highlights in the battle against drugs in Mobile County.

Tillman accused Callaghan of misleading people by claiming the Wee Care
case as his own. "He wasn't the lead investigator. (Corp. Roy) Cuthkelvin
made that case."

Cuthkelvin started the case, Callaghan said, but he was the lead case
investigator. He has never claimed to be the only one who worked on the
case, he said.