Police Chief Emmett Turner lashed out at his critics in a Scene interview, defending his department as just “as upstanding as any other.” The embattled Turner also insisted he did nothing improper by working an off-duty job in 1996 with one of the policemen now at the center of a widening corruption investigation.
“Are you telling me I don’t have the right to make money?” demanded Turner, who is paid $97,767 as police chief. “Are you telling me there’s a limit to how much I can make?”
Mayor Bill Purcell, meanwhile, declined an opportunity to express confidence in Turner during a separate Scene interview. Purcell said he will withhold judgment on Turner until all the facts are known.
“Turner is the chief today and doing the job he is paid to do,” Purcell said. “But making a comment now would be like asking a judge to make a ruling in the middle of a trial.”
Only a month after taking office, Purcell is clearly trying to perform a difficult balancing act, hoping not to offend either of two strong voting blocs—Hispanics or blacks.
Hispanic leaders are demanding that authorities press an investigation into the beatings, robbings, and harassment of immigrants at South Nashville apartment complexes. But black leaders are insisting that Turner, the city’s first African American police chief, is blameless in the scandal.
The rift became public this past week. A new Hispanic civil rights organization was set up to look into the abuse of Hispanics in Middle Tennessee. Hispanic leaders announced their group at a news conference at the Metro Courthouse. Meanwhile, the Nashville chapter of the NAACP released a statement defending Turner, and no African American leaders attended the Hispanics’ news conference.
The Scene reported last month that the private security firm Detection Services carried out crimes against Hispanics over an 18-month period with the knowledge of some members of the Nashville Police Department. The security company employed more than 40 policemen, including two officers in the department’s Internal Security Division. Three separate Internal Security investigations into Detection Services went nowhere.
Turner told the Scene Tuesday that he hasn’t asked Purcell for a vote of confidence. “As a general rule, we have as upstanding a police department as any other,” the police chief said. “There will always be some that don’t follow the rules. It’s not a corrupt police department.”
As for his off-duty employment, Turner said, “I did not violate any rules of the department. There are no rules prohibiting senior management from working in this capacity. I didn’t see why it’s a big issue.”
At a news conference last week, Turner acknowledged that he worked an off-duty job at Planet Hollywood in mid-1996, six months after his promotion to police chief. Police Sgt. Mark Garafola, who was demoted this week for conducting his private security business on public time, was one of two police supervisors at the Planet Hollywood event. Both Garafola and Turner had been hired by a local firm, Rock Solid, to provide security at the restaurant’s gala opening.
Questions have arisen as to whether Turner worked that night under the supervision of Garafola. At an earlier press conference, Turner denied that he had ever worked for Garafola. Last week, when news surfaced that the police chief worked the Planet Hollywood gig, Turner insisted he was hired directly by Bart Butler, Rock Solid’s president, and denied that he reported to Garafola. Turner said he was hired by Butler as a “consultant.”
Butler’s version of events casts some doubt on Turner’s claims. Butler confirmed to the Scene Monday that he had essentially hired Turner to work as a “security guard” in Planet Hollywood’s VIP room. But Butler also acknowledged that he gave Garafola and another policeman broad supervisory powers that could have included supervising Turner at the event. Under “certain circumstances,” Butler explained, Garafola could have been in a position to give orders to Turner at Planet Hollywood.
Turner’s relationship with Garafola is being examined by investigators from a joint Police Department-Metro District Attorney’s office task force. The task force was set up to investigate the allegations that appeared in the Scene.
This week, police said their own internal investigation found that Garafola “violated several departmental policies” regarding his off-duty work for the private security firm ASAP. The former Detection Services employee has been “disempowered” as a police officer and removed from his job running the department’s auto theft unit, police said. Investigators found that he “improperly” had a partial interest in ASAP, and that he had brokered the off-duty employment of his fellow officers. Both are violations of police policy.
In other developments:
♦ Police Detective Al Gray resigned from the police force after failing a random drug test. Gray was one of four investigators assigned to the task force set up to investigate the allegations published in the Scene.
♦ The wife of a police officer, whose name has not been released, received a threatening phone call at home on Nov. 3, 1999, just days after the Scene published allegations of police corruption. The unidentified caller accused her husband of being a “snitch.” The caller said her husband would be “lucky to get home alive,” according to Penny Harrington, the couple’s attorney. Police spokesman Don Aaron confirmed that the police officer was provided a police escort home that night, the matter is “under investigation,” and the incident was classified on the police report as “intimidation.”
♦ A former guard at Detection Services, who witnessed the abuse of Hispanics and has been promised anonymity, also received a threatening call at home from an anonymous caller. Attorney Harrington, who is also representing the guard, said her client’s car was vandalized shortly after the Scene stories appeared. Harrington reported the incident to the FBI. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI have been called in by Metro investigators to probe possible civil rights violations of Hispanics.
