TBI SEEKS TIGHTER SECURITY OVER OWN BUILDING

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director Larry Wallace is proud to
preside over the state law enforcement agency's year-old, high-tech
headquarters, on a hill above Ellington Parkway north of downtown Nashville.

But there's one feature of the $20.5 million building that Wallace doesn't
fully control: its security system.

Wallace said he would prefer to have TBI personnel perform all security
functions at the agency's headquarters, but that is not possible under a
five-year contract that the Department of General Services has signed with
a Florida-based company, Meridian Management Corp.

So the TBI headquarters is patrolled, like most other state office
buildings, by unarmed guards from a private security company. They also
staff the front gate and the front desk.

It's an arrangement that Department of General Services officials said
provides security guards at lower cost than the state could hire permanent
employees.

"What I would like to have is a small group of TBI employees that could be
here 24-7, armed and in uniform," to provide security for the building,
Wallace said Thursday.

In the meantime, he said, "We will do the best we can."

The TBI got an embarrassing lesson in security in January, when employees
discovered that 50 pounds of cocaine was missing from its evidence vault.

TBI officials said a private security guard who had been assigned to the
building told investigators a few days later that he had used a master key
to gain access to the area and then twisted a coat hanger so he could open
the evidence room door.

Officials said they had never done a background check on the guard, Jody
Mark Tolar, who had criminal charges pending, because his employer, U.S.
Security, had not submitted his employment application to the agency, as it
should have.

Another theft of cocaine recently in the news was not related to building
security, Wallace said.

A recently resigned TBI agent, Patrick Howell, was arrested Oct. 19 on
charges of taking small amounts of the drug to give to prostitutes.

Wallace said the latest arrest does not reflect on the TBI headquarters'
security procedures, which have been beefed up since January.

"There is no similarity in these two cases," Wallace said in an interview.
"Anything that Pat Howell had, he had in his possession during the normal
course of his responsibilities. ... He would not have had access to the
evidence room."

Wallace said the TBI "has taken stringent additional security measures"
since the discovery in January that a large amount of cocaine, seized by
the Tennessee Highway Patrol in a traffic stop on Interstate 40 in Dickson
County, was missing from the evidence room.

Officials said Tolar, the private security guard, told investigators that
he took marijuana from the evidence room on one occasion and a total of
just more than 50 pounds of cocaine on two other occasions late last year.

The TBI, which formerly had employees and equipment at eight locations in
Nashville, moved into its new headquarters in June 2000 and dedicated the
building in September 2000.

"This facility was still very new" when the cocaine was stolen, Wallace
said Thursday. "There was a lot of work still in progress by the
contractors. We probably moved in 60 to 90 days before we should have."

He said there were early "glitches" in the building's security system that
have subsequently been worked out.

He declined to give details of the improved security measures, except to
say that there are now additional "obstacles" to getting into the agency's
evidence vaults.

Two TBI employees are on duty in the agency's computer operations center
around the clock. They monitor video cameras that cover various areas of
the building, as well as a key card system that records when anyone enters
or leaves a secure area - or tries to enter an area to which he does not
have access.

Wallace said the private security guards now have access to a smaller part
of the building during their nighttime patrols.

The TBI is also installing a 6-foot fence, topped by electronic motion
detectors, around its 13-acre compound.

U.S. Security, the subcontractor that hired Tolar, was terminated by
Meridian Management soon after the cocaine theft was discovered in January.

Investigators focused on Tolar because, shortly before the cocaine was
discovered missing, he had been fired by U.S. Security, after TBI learned
he had been arrested several months earlier on charges of reckless driving
and unlawful use of drug paraphernalia.

Tolar, 28, is being held in the Metro Jail, unable to post $500,000 bond,
while he awaits trial in Davidson County Criminal Court.

Howell, 37, joined TBI in 1989 and left the agency in good standing in
April 1998. He returned to TBI in November 1999 and worked undercover
investigating the sex industry in Nashville.

Howell resigned Sept. 18 after he became the subject of an internal
investigation, a TBI spokeswoman said. The Davidson County grand jury
indicted him Oct. 19 on four counts of tampering with evidence, between
March and September 2001, and one count of possessing cocaine "with intent
to deliver to various prostitutes."

Howell is at liberty under $50,000 bond, pending his arraignment in
Criminal Court on Nov. 14.

Ed Jones, deputy commissioner of the Department of General Services, said
Thursday that the TBI building is operated under a "total management
contract" with Meridian Management.

"That includes everything from pest control to heating, and air
conditioning and security," he said.

Meridian subcontracts the security duties to a company called Imperial
Security. Wallace said the Imperial employees assigned to the TBI building,
two per shift, "are doing a good job."

Most state agencies rely on private security companies because they can
provide guards at lower cost than the state could hire permanent employees,
Jones said.

"Other than the Capitol and the Legislative Plaza and the prisons,
everybody else is privatized. ... With the budget the way it is, it's the
most efficient way to operate."

He said the state pays $10.59 an hour for unarmed security guards at the
TBI building under its contract with Meridian. He said the state would
probably have to pay $12 an hour, plus an additional $4 an hour in
benefits, if it hired permanent employees to perform the same tasks.

Meridian can charge the state a maximum of just over $1 million a year for
all the services it provides at TBI headquarters, Jones said.