New chief feeds hungry audience status quo

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© St. Petersburg Times
published January 11, 2002

The new chief of police of St. Petersburg, perhaps understandably, tried as hard as he could Thursday to avoid saying anything controversial.

Chuck Harmon spoke to the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club, a group that prides itself on asking tough questions. It was a debut for a guy who quietly rose through the ranks, then was thrust into the top spot last month when the mayor fired Mack Vines.

Five of the eight members of the City Council were there, all at the same table, just past stage left. Adding to the fun at the next table was former council member and mayoral candidate Kathleen Ford, who is experienced at grilling police chiefs.

If you ask me, he looked a little nervous.

"I am not Coach (Steve) Spurrier," Harmon told the Tigers again and again, referring to the just-resigned college football coach. He meant he is not like any of the previous chiefs, but is his own man, who must build his own trust with the rank and file.

For a guy who has been there 20 years and served under five chiefs, two of them fired in controversy, Harmon, 42, had remarkably few strong opinions. His speech was vanilla-bland, which is not necessarily a criticism, given recent events, just an observation.

"The one thing I've been stressing with them is a sense of professionalism," Harmon said, for example. Hard to argue.

The questions from the audience started to spice things up. Harmon ducked the question of whether using the word "orangutan" (which is what got the last chief fired) was an automatic firing offense for his senior officers. Hey, he wasn't there to hear Vines, wasn't part of the investigation, and so on.

But could it be a firing offense? "Sure it could," he finally said.

When pinned down, Harmon said he didn't think that Vines had meant anything racial with the word "orangutan." However, lest anyone think he was disagreeing with the mayor, Harmon quickly added that Mayor Rick Baker had to make a "tough decision" and decided he had lost confidence in Vines.

Some of the questions were about high police turnover. Harmon said there was a rash of retirements because of an old change in the rules. Ford asked him: Well, couldn't you see that coming? What are you doing to recruit? Harmon said something about better compensation and better marketing, but concluded, "I don't have the answers for you." That answer needs to get better.

The Tiger Bay audience was just shy of being lily-white. Whether the belief is baseless or not, it is relevant that a certain percentage of white residents of the city believe the Police Department does not stress drug enforcement. This belief surfaced Thursday in the question of whether the department takes "the path of least resistance."

Harmon said the allegation is not true, naturally. Why, the city is just now getting $35,000 as its share of some drug stings, he said. St. Petersburg is part of some big federal-local drug operations, which, of course, he said he couldn't talk about.

Another former council member, Connie Kone, asked Harmon whether he would enforce the laws equally throughout the city. A follow-up question was about how former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani rigorously enforced every law, even small ones. These questions were an indirect way of suggesting that police do not always enforce laws against, say, public consumption of alcohol in some neighborhoods. I am taking a wild stab here, but I think they meant black neighborhoods.

"I'm not sure his (Giuliani's) style would be successful in this city," Harmon said. He said the philosophy of "community policing" was to work with each neighborhood to set local priorities for police emphasis. Announcing that everybody who drinks alcohol within 500 feet of a liquor store is "going to jail," Harmon said, wouldn't be the right thing to do.

Overall, the impression I got was of a second fiddle not yet used to the first chair, trying not to make a mistake before he gets going. He was hired to be a status quo chief, and a status quo chief he will be. Not necessarily a criticism, just an observation.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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