State: Troopers' after-hours work can be a liability

[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
Some officers spend more time at their after-hours jobs than they do on duty.

On Jan. 27, 1997, two days after Frederick Schnell's 42nd birthday, he and his wife, Elizabeth, headed to Disney World to celebrate. They got an early start, just after 7 a.m.

About the same time, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Wayne Titus finished working his off-duty job, an all-night security detail at a turnpike service plaza. He climbed into his patrol car and drove to his regular patrol zone.

At 71 mph, Titus' patrol car crossed the center line and hit the Schnells head on.

Mr. Schnell suffered relatively minor injuries. Mrs. Schnell was left paralyzed on one side and permanently brain damaged. She was a lawyer in Vero Beach, studying for her second master's degree. Now she requires nursing care round-the-clock.

The Schnells' attorney says Titus probably fell asleep at the wheel. Last year, without fanfare, the state of Florida agreed to pay the Schnells nearly $10-million.

[Photo by Juan Dale Brown - Fort Pierce Tribune ]
Trooper Wayne Titus, in court above left, had just finished an all-night shift at his after-hours job when he crossed the center line and crashed his patrol car head on into a couple driving to Disney World.

Titus is no longer with the highway patrol -- but not because of the accident. Months after the settlement, he was arrested for leading officers on a 100-mph chase with a prostitute in his patrol car. In May, he was sentenced to seven months in jail.

* * *

To fall asleep at the wheel and kill or injure someone is the worst potential outcome of a trooper's after-hours job. The more common outcome is poor work performance.

"If a guy works eight hours for the department and then two or four or six hours for somebody else, then he works the same schedule the next day. By the third day . . . is he at his peak?" asked retired Maj. Ed Hagler. "I don't think so.

"He's going to pull his patrol car under a tree and sit back and rest."

Patrol leaders say that under the union labor contract, the agency can't stop troopers from working extra jobs.

"I don't like to see troopers inside Dillard's, standing in the underwear section in full uniform," said Maj. Ron Getman, who retired June 30 from the patrol's command staff, ". . . but they're working during their off time, and we can't fault them."

Patrol leaders say they don't want troopers exhausted by after-hours jobs, so they put some limits on the work: no more than 24 hours a week at off-duty jobs, no more than 16 hours of regular and off-duty work a day.

Over the past two decades, for reasons big and small, the leaders of the Florida Highway Patrol have lost control of their officers and have lost sight of their mission. A special report
• Slow investigations torment those in grief
• Troopers’ after-hours work can be a liability
• The good majority

But here's the problem: The patrol doesn't limit officers' time at another kind of after-hours job, called "hireback" employment. These special assignments, such as suicide patrol on the Sunshine Skyway bridge, function like overtime and pay time and a half.

Officers report "hireback" and off-duty hours on separate forms. The only way supervisors can monitor the extra work is to do what the Times did -- combine all work hours on a single spreadsheet.

By doing that, the Times found:

A trooper who worked 28 straight days, including six 14-hour days.

A trooper who worked 19 of 24 hours one day and 21 of 24 hours the next.

Troopers working more hireback and off-duty hours than they worked on regular shifts.

Getman said some recruits "come to us for the . . . off-duty employment opportunities that come from being on the patrol."

At off-duty jobs, officers pull down $25 to $35 an hour -- good money, given that trooper pay starts at less than $15 an hour and tops out at $21.

One Pasco trooper earned $31,000 from the patrol last year and $21,000 from Dillard's. In a single month, a Hernando trooper earned more than $3,000 working security at Dillard's.

Former highway patrol Cpl. Douglas McMann is practically a side-job legend in Tampa Bay. His nickname in Troop C was "Dougy Dillard."

Thanks to him, troopers have a lock on security work at several area Dillard's department stores. He got the credit in 1995 when the Clearwater Dillard's bumped city police from the store security force and brought in troopers.

Police Chief Sid Klein was not happy. In a letter to the patrol, he spelled it out: You wanted the job, you got it -- don't call us when crimes happen.

Ultimately McMann quit the patrol and moved to Colorado with the former manager of the Port Richey Dillard's.

They were arrested in January, caught on Dillard's video cameras carting $15,000 in merchandise out of the store in Greeley.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk