SHOCK OVER ARRESTS LINGERS FOR RESIDENTS

How do five respected law enforcement officers end up facing drug
conspiracy charges? From New York's "Serpico" case in 1971 to Los Angeles'
widespread police corruption scandal in 2000, the story is all too common.

Half of the 640 police officers convicted in FBI corruption cases between
1993 and 1997 were found guilty of drug-related offenses, said the federal
General Accounting Office in a 1998 report.

"Anybody who is in narcotics enforcement learns how to traffic," says Edwin
Delattre, a Boston-based national expert on ethics in criminal justice. His
book, "Character and Cops: Ethics in Police," is used in law schools and
criminal justice training across the country.

There's no one reason that officers become corrupt and no one way to
prevent it, Delattre says. Sometimes cops go bad because they have partners
or bosses who are bad, he says. Other times, it's because they're trying to
fit in or get promoted. The need for money also is a common motivation.

"Human motivation is the same with police as with human beings anywhere,"
Delattre says.

The arrests of the former law enforcement officers stunned residents of
Davidson County, from the barbecue capital of Lexington to the furniture
factories in Thomasville.

"Respect is lost," says Sue Hunter, an antiques dealer who is a Thomasville
City Council member and former Davidson County commissioner. "You were
taught as a child to respect your officials in the police department. To
think that they would be out there doing or selling drugs, that is just
unbelievable to me. Right now, you just want to say, 'Who do I trust?' It's
not a good feeling."

Residents seem dismayed, too, by the realization that big-city police
corruption could easily reach their more rural communities. In fact,
Delattre says, smaller departments with fewer options to rotate officer
assignments could be more at risk.

"If you leave people in vice too long, it's risky," Delattre says. "If you
don't have any rotation of assignments, it's risky."