RALEIGH -- As Gov. Bev Perdue begins her search for new leadership at the N.C. Highway Patrol, a key decision will be whether to look outside the troubled agency for its new commander.
A 1975 state law requires the governor to promote someone from within the same ranks where problems with trooper misconduct forced Friday's resignation of Col. Randy Glover after only 10 months in the top job.
But a spokeswoman for Perdue said the governor is "open-minded" about the prospect of hiring someone from outside the patrol, or even from out-of-state, to take the reins.
That would require changing the law, which can't happen before next year unless the governor calls a special session of the legislature.
"What the governor wants is someone with the capacity to pull the organization back together," Chrissy Pearson, Perdue's spokeswoman, said Saturday. "Whether that person comes from inside the patrol or outside, she wants someone with significant field experience, somebody who's worked the road."
This week Perdue is expected to name a team of advisers from outside the patrol to suggest reforms and help launch the search for a new commander. Some in the capital are already suggesting that the patrol's next leader should come from outside the organization.
"The governor should start a national search for the most effective commander we can find," said Joe Sinsheimer, a Democratic Party strategist-turned-watchdog. "I think it's absolutely essential the next commander of the Highway Patrol be free from any question of political patronage or cronyism."
There has not been an outsider appointed to lead the Highway Patrol since Col. C.R. Tolar in 1949. He was replaced the following year.
"He was a disaster," said Harold D. Coley, a former trooper from China Grove with the N.C. Highway Patrol Retirees' Association. "The Highway Patrol is a very unique organization. It should be allowed to take care of its own problems as it always has, without knee-jerk reactions from politicians and harassment from the media.
"Bringing in someone from the outside would cause more trouble than what there is now."
Those fired or forced to resign over misconduct represent a small portion of the state's 1,800 troopers, but the recent rash of problems has raised questions about how the patrol selects and trains its sworn officers.
Fearing for standards
Career troopers express concern about what they see as erosion of hiring standards and a relaxation of the paramilitary discipline that helped build the patrol's reputation as the state's top law enforcement agency.
Recent problems include a major who resigned after sending sexually explicit text messages; a captain fired for drunken driving; a sergeant fired for abusing his canine partner; a master trooper who resigned after a charge of drunken driving and felony hit and run; and others dismissed or forced to resign for shooting a cat, lying in court and being investigated in the sexual assault of a motorist.
Two troopers are under criminal investigation, including Larry B. Lovick, who resigned last month following allegations he sexually assaulted a young female motorist in Wake County.
Trooper Michael Steele Jr. was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for abducting and fondling Hispanic women at traffic stops in Orange County in 2008 and then threatening them with deportation if they told. Over the last decade, at least 30 troopers have been fired or resigned over on-duty sex or other issues involving misconduct with women.
Two years ago, the Highway Patrol hired consultants to examine its culture. They reported finding "an exceedingly macho, pseudo-military culture" where some troopers described sex on the job as "an expected fringe benefit."
Such revelations stoke the argument for outside leadership that could shake up the status quo. Another issue is the reality that achieving high rank at the patrol has often required a certain amount of political acumen and close relationships with powerful elected patrons.
The insiders law
Glover's long and close friendship with Perdue was viewed as undermining his credibility and independence as a leader.
The 1975 statute requiring that the patrol's commander come from within was approved by a Democratic-controlled legislature while Republican Gov. Jim Holshouser occupied the Executive Mansion.
Holshouser, the first Republican to win a gubernatorial election in North Carolina since 1896, made appointments at key state agencies that his opponents didn't like. The law may have been a strategy to tie the governor's hands about who could be named at the Highway Patrol, where most of the command structure was loyal to the state's Democratic machine.
"Gov. Holshouser was bringing in out-of-state people for other positions, and there was concern about that," recalled Burley Mitchell, who was appointed as crime control secretary in 1979 by Holshouser's Democratic successor, Gov. Jim Hunt.
The legislature adjourned its 2010 session last weekend and is not scheduled to return to Raleigh until next year. For Perdue to push for changing the law before then, she would need to call legislators back for a special session.
State Rep. Thom Tillis, Huntersville Republican, said he is among those who would like to see Perdue consider an outsider for the job.
But given the state's current fiscal woes, he said it wouldn't be wise use of taxpayer funds to hold a special session.
"I'd support an interim leader until we get back in session" said Tillis, the House minority whip. "I think you have to put in an acting head, who would have to come from inside. But there is no reason to hire a permanent replacement right now, particularly with all the turmoil in the agency."
Female leadership
With so many of the patrol's problems involving male troopers' interactions with women, there is talk that the state's first female governor could appoint the patrol's first female commander.
"It's not a very diverse force, and maybe it's time to show some bold leadership and start changing that," said Sen. Eleanor Kinnaird, a Carrboro Democrat who serves on the legislative committee with oversight of the patrol.
A female colonel would likely boost the hiring of female troopers to a more acceptable level, and that could improve the culture from within, Kinnaird said.
Among the current high-ranking troopers that Perdue could tap is Maj. Jennifer Harris, a 21-year veteran who is the patrol's administrative services director.
The first woman promoted to major in the agency's 80-year history, Harris was a trooper for more than eight years before becoming a supervisor, eventually taking command of patrol operations in a nine-county region of the Piedmont. A Wilkes County native, she holds a master's degree and has trained at the FBI National Academy.
A letter sent to the governor this month from unidentified troopers urged Perdue to consider Harris for the top job.
"Maj. Jennifer Harris is probably the most level headed, capable member of the command staff and she is a progressive thinker," said the letter, signed by "The Patrolmen."
"Not only would it look good for her to be the first female colonel, but she is deserving and has the ability to do the job. We need a drastic change in our style of leadership and we need it soon."
Other contenders
Other likely internal contenders are the two men who served directly under Glover in the chain of command.
Lt. Col. Mike W. Gilchrist is the patrol's deputy commander and the son of a former captain. Lt. Col. Wellington R. Scott, an African-American, is director of field operations and previously oversaw the agency's internal affairs division.
Former Col. Walter Wilson Jr., the patrol's commander prior to Glover, said he knows all three.
"They are very well-qualified individuals, certainly as qualified as any outside candidates," Wilson said.
Another possibility is Mike Robertson, a former trooper who is now the commissioner of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles. Perdue met with Robertson earlier this month to talk about potentially moving him to a position with oversight of the Highway Patrol.
Former Secretary Mitchell, who also served as chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, expressed confidence that there are people from within the patrol who could guide the agency into the future.
The key, Mitchell said, is finding someone with the backbone and independence to stand up to the politicians, even the governor who hired him or her.
"The N.C. Highway Patrol is still, in my mind, one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the United States, and is nationally recognized as such," Mitchell said. "It's not all gloom and doom.
"You've had some folks who kind of strayed from the path, but the great majority of troopers are doing a fantastic job, and they still have the confidence of the public. With the right leader, they can roll right on."
Staff writer Jay Price and news researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.
