Agent 302, Who Are You?

They’re not trained law-enforcement officials, but Sheriff’s Department “undercover agents.”

by Phil Campbell

helby County Sheriff A.C. Gilless has a posse, but you won’t find its members openly riding around town hunting down fugitives in Millington, in Midtown, out East, or anywhere else. They’re undertrained, undersupervised, and undercover and they’re helping make drug busts for about $1,300 a month, according to a federal arbitrator. They also may be screwing up drug stings.
Non-binding union arbitration hearings in September, over two jailers arrested for allegedly selling marijuana, took an unexpected turn when details of the sheriff’s “undercover agents” came to light. During the course of the arbitration hearings, these county employees were called “agents,” “special deputies,” “UCs,” “UAs,” and employees of the county personnel division. Whatever their title, they don’t meet state requirements to be considered law-enforcement officials. They don’t have arrest powers, but they can be certified to carry a gun. The sheriff

PHOTO BY JOHN LANDRIGAN

Sheriff A.C. Gilless uses his powers of creating a posse to get non-police officers to make drug buys.

hires them based on his legal authority to raise a posse, and his detectives, without any special instructional skills themselves, train these new county employees.
The federal arbitrator, David Singer, recommended that the jailers, Bernard Kimmons and Victor Campbell, be reinstated, in part because the special deputy/undercover agent who participated in the sting wasn’t able to adequately identify them.
Campbell and Kimmons were arrested at the beginning of this year for allegedly selling marijuana on several occasions in December 1996. (Another ex-jailer, Earley Story, was also arrested in connection with the marijuana sales. He declined assistance from the union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees #1733, so his case was not explored by the arbitrator.)
The case was handled by Department Detective Carl Harrison, along with a special deputy referred to as “UA 302,” who testified at the hearing, and a paid confidential informant, “CI 2282,” who did not testify and whose name was not revealed during the hearings.
The investigation began when the informant told narcotics detectives that three jailers were selling pot, the special deputy told the arbitrator. The informant was used in the initial drug buys, and during those times, the informant made the drug buys.
Deborah Godwin, representing the union, posed this question: If an informant were to frame somebody in exchange for reduced jail time or money, who better than jailers, the people in law enforcement whom informants may know best and despise the most? Singer agreed and discounted the snitch’s role in the case.
Detective Harrison’s role was limited. He did not witness the transactions; instead, he roved the neighborhood where the deals were taking place. Harrison simply accepted the marijuana that was purchased. He also helped “UA 302” file reports about the transactions.
The special deputy testified that he positively identified the jailers after each drug buy. Yet on two occasions he never got out of the truck, and was therefore not close enough to see what was really happening, Singer writes in his findings. When it came to identifying Kimmons, “UA 302” testified that he noted the scar on the jailer’s bald head, and that sometimes the jailer wore a hat during the alleged transactions. Yet there was contradictory evidence – uncontested by the sheriff’s attorney – that Kimmons had a full head of hair throughout his employment as a jailer.
According to the special deputy’s testimony, during most encounters, Campbell was not a seller but a lookout. As for the one situation in which Campbell allegedly sold marijuana, Singer says the Sheriff’s Department can’t be positive that “UA 302” was even at the scene, as he claims.
Why weren’t the alleged drug dealers arrested on the spot, ensuring positive identification? Why wasn’t the drug money marked or the marijuana bags fingerprinted? These questions remain unanswered, Singer noted.
Singer leveled criticism at the special deputy’s lack of training. Though he received two months of training in narcotics identification, and some training in firearms, that falls far short of the formal police training received by full-time sheriff’s deputies and reserve officers – who only make a dollar a year.
“Simply stated, [the special deputy’s] classroom training is informal and without scope or sequence,” Singer wrote in his November decision, formally called an “award.”
“The county provides no formal job description, thereby assuring the informality of the training designed to develop the UA’s job preparation skills,” he added. “Finally, the UA’s classroom and field training are the responsibilities of field detectives, who, however well motivated, appear to hold no credentials suggesting instructional competency.” He called the special deputy’s testimony “highly questionable.”
Assistant Chief Corbett Hart won’t say how many of these undercover agents the county currently employs, claiming that such information would compromise their work. Hart says the agent program has been around for more than a decade and a half. “We’ve developed and refined it over the years,” he says. “These officers have to be trained separately [from other officers]. It’s a hybrid position, but that’s the nature of the beast, since it’s an undercover position.”
As for the situation involving “UA 302,” Hart says, “This particular officer received the regular [undercover agent] training, and this was not his first job by a long shot. These [drug dealers] were very leery and street-wise about how they conducted their business. They took precautions.”
This isn’t the first time someone occupying the nebulous position of “special deputy” has created a controversy. Remember Stephen A. Toarmina? Gilless was twice sued – both times unsuccessfully – because Toarmina, a North Memphis grocer/unpaid special deputy, made arrests without having any arrest powers. On one occasion in 1994, Toarmina drove around in an unmarked car with blue police lights and arrested a drunk driver. The lawsuits against Gilless were ultimately dismissed because Toarmina was able to persuade the judge that he was exercising his citizens’ arrest powers, and did not represent the Sheriff’s Department.
The sheriff is ignoring the arbitrator’s findings, according to Sheriff’s Department legal adviser Don Strother. He says Singer used “the wrong burden of proof,” making his judgment based on the burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt” versus a “preponderance of the evidence.”
Singer’s findings come months after General Sessions Judge Ann Pugh dismissed the case for a lack of evidence during a preliminary hearing. Still, prosecutors took the three jailers before a grand jury where they were indicted. Criminal charges are still pending.
Judging from arbitration transcripts, the most damning evidence has yet to be heard: audio tapes of the transactions. Oddly, at the time of the hearing, the Sheriff’s Department hadn’t confirmed if the jailers’ voices were on the tapes. Though testimony about the tapes was limited, “UA 302” stated that he has yet to try to make a positive identification of the voices on the tape. Detective Harrison testified that he listened to the tapes, but, since he has never heard the jailers’ voices before, he can’t make a positive identification. n