Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 20, 1993 TAG: 9311200226
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN BARNES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Short
Rush, a supervisor; Gary Babb, a road officer; and Douglas Mayhew, head of the DARE drug and alcohol education program, each face 60 days with no salary beginning Nov. 30.
Babb and Mayhew will no longer be on road patrol when they are reinstated. Instead they will work in the jail annex.
Rush - who has been under fire for consuming as many as six to 12 beers, wine and a mixed drink before reporting to the scene of Clayton Jahue Fore's murder on June 1, 1990 - will be demoted to investigator.
Fore's assailant, Beattie Coe, asked for a retrial, claiming Rush was drunk at the scene and missed crucial evidence. More than half a dozen deputies testified in September that they had seen Rush drink both off and on duty.
But Substitute Circuit Judge J. Samuel Johnston ruled in Rush's favor last month, saying that Rush fulfilled his responsibilities professionally and thoroughly.
However, Johnston ripped what he called the department's "cavalier" and "unprofessional" attitude.
The written announcement of the suspensions was delivered with Sheriff Carl Wells' payroll account statements and did not specify particular incidents of drinking on duty. It did say that the drinking took place while the deputies were not undercover.
Drinking while undercover is not a violation of department's informal policy.
There is no written policy manual outlining rules for drinking.
by CNB