BITS, PIECES ADD UP TO ONE THING - CHIEF GIBBS SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME

The question confronting Arnold Gibbs and confounding the rest of us
is whether he acted as a concerned father or a police chief when he
went to a Cape Coral motel where his daughter was involved in a drug
bust.

Gibbs, 53, didn't like his daughter Monique dating Brandon Graham a
former Mariner High football star.

Did Gibbs try to remove Graham, 20, from his daughter's life by
arresting him for selling drugs as Graham's lawyer Michael Hornung
thinks?

Gibbs had motive and resources.

Investigators say Graham sold cocaine to police informers on Aug. 17
in Room 107 of the Del Prado Inn.

Cape Coral police, armed with a search warrant, broke into the room,
hoping to catch Graham on Aug. 18.

Police say they found drugs, but not Graham. They also found Monique
Gibbs and Donna Carter, 21, but decided not to arrest them.

Gibbs says he didn't interfere.

"I was called sometime around 5 a.m. and advised that the
investigation was over and that I could come and pick up my
daughter," Gibbs wrote. "I was absolutely uninvolved!"

There are too many things in this investigation that don't add up:

Why was Maj. Jay Murphy, the chief's right-hand man, involved in a
street-level drug bust?

Monique Gibbs told cops Aug. 18 she flushed drugs down the toilet.

Graham returned to the hotel after police searched the room. Why was
he arrested even though he wasn't in the room with the drugs?

Police didn't take Monique Gibbs' statement until Sept. 6, nearly
three weeks after the drug bust.

Gibbs told one investigator he called Graham's sister, asked the
family to fire Hornung and offered to get him another attorney.
Hornung says Gibbs also promised to drop charges, but Gibbs denies
that offer.

Does it sound like a chief distancing himself from an investigation?

Cape cops told the State Attorney's Office they weren't sure Monique
Gibbs knew drugs were in the room.

Did they turn a deaf ear because she was the chief's daughter? Here's
the scenario she described for investigators in her Sept. 6 statement:

MG: "I flushed the drugs down the toilet."

Cop: "What drugs?"

MG: "Ah crack."

Cop: "How do you know it was crack?"

MG: "Because that's what my boyfriend told me it was. ...

Cop: "Why did you flush it down the toilet?"

MG: "Because I was in the room and I didn't want to get in trouble. ..."

Cop: "Does your boyfriend sell crack?"

MG: "No, not any more."

Cop: "Not any more. Did that night though ... though, didn't he?"

MG: "Yes."

Deputy State Attorney Marshall Bower says Cape police were afraid to
arrest Gibbs' daughter or didn't understand cocaine possession law.

Bower says if anyone should have been arrested Aug. 18, it was
Monique Gibbs and not Graham.

Bower's office dropped Graham's drug possession charges. A charge of
selling cocaine remains. It arrested and charged the chief's daughter
with cocaine possession Oct. 4.

Gibbs shuns The News-Press, but his mouthpiece Angelo Bitsis says:
"The chief went there as a concerned father after the investigation
was over to pick up his daughter."

Gibbs compromised the investigation by being in the parking lot.

His presence sent the wrong message to his Boys in Blue - that his
daughter is above the law.

If Gibbs wanted to do the right thing, he should have stayed home.