Chatham Sheriff Wants To Stay

MISSING MARIJUANA, LAWSUIT LIKELY TO LOOM IN ELECTION

PITTSBORO - For more than a year, Ike Gray has been the man who weathered
the storm.

Since being appointed Chatham County sheriff 14 months ago, he has
shouldered a lawsuit filed by a former deputy who claims he was fired
illegally, and he has managed a department that in recent years solved a
lower percentage of property crimes than most agencies in the state.

But most troublesome is the unsolved case of stolen marijuana, in which the
department allowed 5,000 pounds of the confiscated drug back out on the
streets.

Gray admits the whirlwind of controversy has made his first year as sheriff
the worst of his 25 years in law enforcement. Still, the Chatham County
native announced plans last month to run for the post he currently holds.

"One of my goals is to get a good public trust in this department," Gray
said last month, his attorney by his side.

Regardless of who wins the election, the next sheriff faces a wide array of
problems. Gray's opponents say the department lacks leadership and
organization. Residents say officers aren't seen enough around the county.
Trying to serve a rapidly growing Hispanic population has challenged
deputies, none of whom speaks Spanish well. And the office's clearance rate
for property crimes -- an indication of how well deputies solve burglaries
and larcenies -- is about half the state average, according to the State
Bureau of Investigation.

Many residents have said those problems -- plus the stolen marijuana and
the lawsuit -- have been an embarrassment to the county.

Five other men have announced plans to run for sheriff. They are Siler City
police Sgt. James Bowden, county Commissioner Rick Givens, former deputy
Darden Jarman, retired Trooper Randy Knight and Pittsboro police Sgt.
Richard Webster. The filing period is Monday through March 1, with the
primary election tentatively scheduled for May 7.

"The field is open," said Gary Phillips, commissioners' chairman, "because
of all the troubles the department's had in the last year and because some
powerful people have decided to run. It's a field of interesting folks, all
who have a constituency of some sort."

Chatham County makes the case for electing law enforcement, said Dean
Kueter Jr., director of government affairs at the National Sheriffs'
Association in Alexandria, Va.

"The election would go a long way," Kueter said, "in giving the voters
ultimate say in terms of who their law enforcement officers are."

Webster, who was a Chatham deputy for 10 years, said the department is
"behind the times." The sheriff's office has not adapted to the county's
crime trends and demographic changes -- the mix of traditional rural
communities, new subdivisions and a rapidly growing Hispanic population.
"The whole department needs to be reorganized from top to bottom," he said.
"A lot of this is the good-old-boy system down here. It's not whether you
can do the job or not. It's like a checkerboard. It's time to turn the
board over and start the game again."

Since Gray was appointed sheriff in December 2000, he has acted with
integrity, runs a pretty good jail and has a modest ego, Phillips said.
When the commissioner first met Gray while working in the Ruritans' cooking
line at Silk Hope Old Time Farm Days, a local festival, he was impressed.

"He just came in, worked, never drew any attention to himself," Phillips said.

Born in the Brush Creek Church area in 1950, Gray grew up working the
fields of his father's tobacco farm. The youngest of five siblings, he
dropped out of school in the 11th grade.

"It was one of these deals where the farm consumed so much of my time," he
said. "We didn't have any money, but we had love in our family and we had
food on the table. And we went to church every Sunday."

Gray took jobs in construction and at a chicken hatchery. He married Jane
Culberson, his wife of 33 years, and later earned his GED. He worked at the
Siler City Police Department for less than a year, then returned to
construction because it paid more.

But Gray missed police work and eventually put himself through Basic Law
Enforcement Training. By the late 1970s, he was working as a patrol officer
for the Pittsboro Police Department. He took a job as a patrol deputy at
the sheriff's department in June 1983 and became an investigations sergeant
three months later. In December 1990, he was promoted to chief deputy, a
position he held until he replaced an ailing Don Whitt 10 years later.

At first, Gray considered staying out of this year's sheriff's race. His
contenders' complaints, it seems, have merit. His deputies, he said, need
more training in investigating crime scenes, collecting evidence and
writing reports. To improve property crime clearance rates, Gray would like
to start a breaking-and-entering task force. But most of all, he said, the
department needs more than its 54 sworn officers.

"Manpower is a problem," he said. "You can't effectively patrol a
707-square-mile county with five or six deputies on patrol at any given time."

In 2000, the latest year for which statistics are available, Chatham
deputies solved 9 percent of the county's property crimes. The state
average was 17.4 percent. Harnett County, which is similar to Chatham in
size and terrain, has fewer deputies per person but still maintained a 14
percent clearance rate. Moore, another county of similar size and
population, solved 12 percent of its property crimes.

Phillips, the commissioners' chairman, said the county has battled with the
sheriff's office over finances. During the past budget period, the board
denied the department's request for two more deputies.

"People out in the county tend to say [the officers] are just not as
visible as they should be," Phillips said. "It seems to me, just looking at
it, it's a tremendous amount of money we give that department. We believe
the resources are there."

In fiscal 2001, the sheriff's adopted budget was about $2.7 million. This
year, it grew to almost $3 million.

Knight, a telecommunicator for the state Highway Patrol, said Chatham
deputies lack proper training and time-management skills. There are too
many break-ins, and officers aren't patrolling places that fall victim most.

"There seems to be no direction for any type of enforcement that these
people are offering," he said. "Deputies are not utilizing their time.
There's four or five officers sitting down in that office right now doing
nothing. The people are tired of it."

'I Do Care About This County'

The past year, Gray said, has been tough. The lawsuit, marijuana scandal
and media attention have been distractions. Gray said he has held meetings
with his deputies to boost the department's sagging morale.

Gray said he believes he has done fairly well. He said he thinks he has
kept the department together since the marijuana theft -- 3,000 pounds from
a surplus Army truck parked behind the department, and the remaining ton
from a shallow grave at the county landfill. The drugs had been seized in
February 2000 during an undercover sting near Siler City. Gray would like
to complete the career he started in Chatham County. After dealing with his
emotions and thinking about the 19 years he has put into the sheriff's
department, he decided that keeping his job was worth the recent aggravations.

"I do care about this county and the citizens in this county, and I know I
am capable of running this department effectively," he said. "I thought
that I needed to pursue the office of sheriff because it's what I've been
striving for all these years."

Throughout an interview last month, Gray often was kept from responding by
one of his attorneys, who sat by his side. At one point, the attorney,
Chris Jones, led Gray outside the room to discuss their answer to a question.

Gray maintains he did nothing wrong in regards to the stolen marijuana.
Within 48 hours of becoming sheriff, he called the FBI to ask for a
full-scale investigation, he said. Before then, Jones said, shots were
called by Whitt, who was still sheriff.

"I wasn't the sheriff," Gray said. "It was not my fault, and I have tried
and will continue to try to have some closure. I think, if anything, it's
brought me closer to my grass roots of being a Christian, knowing that I
have to depend on a higher power to help me through turmoil."

The marijuana incident, however, was coupled earlier this month with the
lawsuit when former Sgt. Dan Phillips alleged that his firing was connected
to the missing marijuana case. He said he was punished for taking an
informant to the FBI in Asheboro, sparking a federal investigation into the
thefts.

Gray has not commented about the lawsuit, but Jones said that Gray fired
the former deputy because he refused to take a polygraph test to determine
whether he had made a tape of William "Buddy" Fowler, the former Chatham
Central High School principal, making racial slurs.

"Sheriff Gray's motive," Jones said, "was nothing more than to fire an
employee who was insubordinate and threatened the department with a
meritless lawsuit."

Despite the problems he faces, Gray maintains he is the best candidate.

"The more experience that I'm able to obtain, the better leader I will be,"
he said. "I am capable. I feel there's definitely things I can improve on,
and I intend to do that."