The state has suspended the law enforcement
powers of a Port of Charleston police officer accused of holding a gun to
a dockworker's neck during a dispute last year over a parking ticket.
Officer Patrick Ashley O'Neal will remain sidelined without a badge and
gun until the state concludes its investigation into his conduct in the
June 2004 incident, said William Neill, director of the South Carolina
Criminal Justice Academy. The state also is reviewing his role in two
off-duty fights earlier in his career, Neill said.
The academy has asked the ports authority for more information about
O'Neal before making its final decision. "The ball is in their court,"
Neill said. "We could decide to reissue his certification or take his
certification."
Ports authority spokesman Byron Miller said port officials received
notification of the academy's decision late Wednesday and were in the
process of reviewing the matter. He declined to comment on the decision or
how it might affect O'Neal's future at the port. O'Neal has been assigned
to a desk job since September.
Ken Riley, president of the local dockworkers' union, said he would be
forced to pull his men off the docks if O'Neal is returned to patrol
duties.
"I could not allow my people to work alongside him" Riley said. "It's
either him or us."
O'Neal is the second port police officer sidelined by state officials
in the past two weeks. The academy stripped officer Elizabeth Benita
Jordan of her badge last week after examining allegations of drug use and
dishonesty that got her fired from the North Charleston police force in
June 2004.
Jordan and O'Neal were among 15 law enforcement officers subjected to
state reviews after questions about their conduct were highlighted in The
Post and Courier series "Tarnished Badges." The series, published in
March, explained how some police officers manage to remain in law
enforcement, despite professional misconduct and criminal behavior.
So far, two of those officers have been barred from police work in
South Carolina; three have been suspended pending further review of their
cases; five have left law enforcement; and five have been cleared to
return to duty.
O'Neal, 31, could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but he has said
in earlier interviews that he was eager to return to patrolling the docks.
Witnesses told State Law Enforcement Division investigators that O'Neal
placed his gun to the neck of dockworker Richard Brown, threw him to the
ground and sprayed him with pepper spray while Brown lay handcuffed on the
ground. When other longshoremen rushed over, O'Neal leveled his pistol at
the crowd and pepper-sprayed them as well, witnesses said.
In March, 9th Circuit Solicitor Ralph Hoisington declined to press
criminal charges against O'Neal but said the officer's handling of the
incident appeared to be an overreaction and raised serious concerns about
his ability to remain in "a position that involves the possibility of the
use of deadly force."
Concerns about O'Neal's temper surfaced earlier in his law enforcement
career while he was an officer with the North Charleston Police
Department.
Port officials say that when they hired him in December 2003, they
weren't told that O'Neal had twice been investigated by his former
employer for his role in off-duty fights. O'Neal had been arrested on two
assault charges in June 2000 after a Mount Pleasant bar brawl. In July
2003, O'Neal landed in trouble again after police said he allowed a friend
to retrieve his city-issued pistol from a car during a fistfight outside a
Folly Beach house party.
North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt has said he was prepared to
fire O'Neal but the officer resigned first. Zumalt notified the academy
that he would not rehire O'Neal, but the academy lost that document and
did not flag O'Neal as a potential problem.
Riley, president of the dockworkers' union, applauded the academy's
decision to suspend O'Neal.
"It's a step in the right direction," he said.