By Joe Gamm
News & Record
GREENSBORO, N.C. — In most cases, a police officer, sheriff’s deputy or state trooper is more likely to face a drug test after wrecking a cruiser than after shooting someone.
A query of 10 North Carolina law enforcement agencies found that only two agencies require drug or alcohol testing following the use of deadly force, including in incidents that are fatal.
Whether an agency chooses to require drug or alcohol testing is up to the individual departments, said Eddie Caldwell the director of the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association.
“You can argue it either way,” Caldwell said. “Somebody can make the point that after a tragedy the officers ought to be drug tested. You can also make the argument that if you have a good officer who has never had any sign of impairment, that you can undermine their integrity.”
The News & Record recently investigated officer-involved shootings in the Piedmont Triad and Raleigh. Of 61 shootings the newspaper examined, 60 were ruled to be justified. Thirty-three people died.
The State Bureau of Investigations reviewed all those fatal shootings and turned over its findings to local district attorneys. The district attorneys determined whether the shootings were legal.
It’s likely that none of the officers in the cases the newspaper examined were screened for drugs or alcohol after the shootings. The only agency surveyed that requires screenings after uses of force, the
Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, didn’t have any officer-involved shootings.
Officials with the Greensboro, High Point, Raleigh and Winston-Salem police departments said they do not automatically conduct drug or alcohol tests on officers involved in uses of deadly force. Neither do the Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham county sheriff’s offices.
The Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department automatically requires testing any time a gun is fired in the line of duty and conducts testing after any incidents that involve a death or an officer needs medical attention beyond first aid, according to its policies.
An attorney who has represented clients in lawsuits against law enforcement agencies disagrees with Caldwell. Greensboro attorney Bob Weckworth said anything that would assist in uncovering the truth of the situation is a policy that should be followed.
Weckworth sued the Greensboro Police Department and the city after Officer J.B. Tucker shot and wounded his client Anthony Fields on Nov. 11, 2007. The city eventually settled out of court.
“There’s no harm. What is the harm in having the test conducted?” Weckworth asked. “I would think it would show they have better credibility.”
Bloch Not Screened
In June, former Greensboro police Officer Timothy Bloch was charged with obtaining a controlled substance by defrauding a practitioner. Police said he was trying to buy oxycodone, a prescription pain medication.
Bloch, 34, resigned from the police force in December, about eight months after fatally shooting a knife-wielding woman during an altercation. Investigators did not screen Bloch for drugs or alcohol after the shooting.
Bloch told the News & Record after his arrest in June that he had an addiction, but he said he was not dealing with the addiction on March 25, 2014, when he shot 47-year-old Chieu-di Thi Vo, who died in the hospital two days later.
He said he did have a prescription at the time to deal with pain from college hockey injuries and he had told his supervisors what medications he required.
He said his addiction started after he resigned.
Greensboro police have refused to say whether Bloch was tested for drugs or alcohol as part of the investigation into Vo’s death, saying it would be part of a personnel record.
“We are regularly drug-tested,” Bloch said of his service in the department. “I automatically thought I would be tested.”
The department’s policy is to take officers who have been involved in shootings to a hospital to be monitored immediately after the incident.
But the screening Bloch said he expected never happened.
“If Charlotte’s got a policy in place, why wouldn’t (the Greensboro Police Department) mirror that policy?” Weckworth asked. “I think it should be standard operating procedure. When you weigh the factors, you should come down on the side of the pursuit of the truth.”
In a statement issued to the News & Record, Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott said the department’s policies do allow for drug testing if an officer appears to be impaired.
“We routinely review our policies to determine if our practices can be improved,” Scott said in the statement. “Mandating drug testing after a critical incident is something we are considering. However, we must obtain input from our legal and medical staff before making any change to our existing procedures.”
Greensboro officers, as with all city employees, are subject to for-cause testing, random testing and hiring testing, city spokesman Donnie Turlington said.
Testing Policy
In North Carolina, being intoxicated is against the law when a person is operating a vehicle or when he or she is being disruptive, Assistant Guilford County District Attorney Howard Neumann said. However, just being intoxicated is not illegal.
“More importantly, it wouldn’t change the facts of how the situation unfolded,” Neumann said. “If the person who got shot was doing something (threatening), whether I’m impaired or not, they were still doing it.”
The SBI, which investigates officer-involved shootings for most law enforcement agencies in North Carolina, doesn’t require a drug or alcohol test during its investigations, said Scott Williams, the special agent in charge of the Northern Piedmont District.
The SBI asks officers involved in shootings when was the last time they took medications, Williams said.
SBI investigators asked Bloch what medications he takes, Bloch said. And he told them.
“We don’t require it unless we believe there’s a reason we need to require a drug or alcohol test,” Williams said. “If something comes up in the investigation that makes us believe either the officer was intoxicated or high, we can ask the officer to consent to a drug screen.”
If the officer declines, the agency can get a judge to issue an order for the officer’s blood, Williams said.
‘We Wouldn’t Go Back’
But whether or not the officer is intoxicated rarely comes into the equation, Williams said.
He equates the question of the officer’s sobriety to that of a civilian. If a civilian is drunk or high and gets into a fight, that civilian still has the right to defend himself, Williams said.
Circumstances rarely lead to the agency’s asking for drug screenings for officers after shootings, he said.
“Information would have to be developed to make you believe the officer’s actions were affected by using drugs or alcohol before we go down that road,” he said.
Bloch’s arrest doesn’t change the SBI’s findings in Vo’s death, Williams said.
“That particular case, we wouldn’t go back,” Williams said. “The facts of that case are not going to change. He had a body cam, too.”
No one outside investigators or the prosecutor has seen the body camera video, which is the case in most incidents in which body cam footage is involved.
Williams said investigators are certain about the accuracy of their investigation of Bloch.
“Generally, if an officer were charged with something like that and we had questions about the case, then we’d probably go back,” Williams said. “Our suspicions would have to have been raised for us to go back.”
Neumann said there is rarely a legal basis for getting a blood sample from an officer.
“If there was an officer-involved shooting and the officer appeared to be impaired, then you would arguably have probable cause to get a blood sample,” Neumann said. “I would think that if impairment were an issue, it would be apparent for whoever’s on the scene.”
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