Don Caldwell: Said Mayberry analogy fit the situation

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• Jurors look at self-defense, not gun, in Workman trial

Roanoke police officers challenged the city's top prosecutor Tuesday, rejecting remarks in which he compared a city officer to Barney Fife in open court.

The Roanoke City Police Association, which represents 200 of the department's roughly 250 officers, objected to comments that called into question the credibility and competence of Sgt. Kenneth Garrett.

"The RCPA feels that the remarks had an immediate, negative impact on the integrity of Sgt. Garrett and the Roanoke Police Department and were made with no evidentiary substance," the association said in a statement.

The disparaging comments were made during the retrial last week of former federal agent Timothy Workman on a voluntary manslaughter charge.

The ensuing row is only the latest in which Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell has criticized Roanoke police or their close cooperation with federal authorities.

But the comments seemed to touch a special nerve this time, angering the police association enough to speak out and even consider whether legal action could be taken on Garrett's behalf.

The comments in question came during the closing arguments of Workman's second trial. A jury acquitted Workman on Friday in the fatal shooting of Keith Edward Bailey outside a Valley View restaurant in 2002.

Caldwell criticized police for allowing Workman, an off-duty Drug Enforcement Administration agent, to walk around and speak with investigators after the shooting rather than handcuffing him and isolating him like any other suspect.

The prosecutor accused Workman of trying to bolster his self-defense claim by inventing a story that another man involved in the disagreement, James Albert Bumbry II, had a gun. Caldwell said that Garrett, a city officer cross-designated as a DEA agent, had previously worked with Workman. Because Garrett was a friend, he took the agent's word "without any critical evaluation," Caldwell said.

Comparing Garrett to the bungling deputy sheriff on "The Andy Griffith Show," Caldwell described him as "the good-hearted guy who tries to help out, but he doesn't quite get it right."

Senior Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease also criticized Garrett in closing arguments. "I hate to say it," she said, "but it kind of looks like Sgt. Garrett picked sides that night."

Garrett declined to comment, saying he would let the police association speak for him.

Roanoke Police Chief Joe Gaskins said he is unaware of any complaint against Garrett in the officer's 17-year career with the department.

"Kenny Garrett is a fine officer and for anyone to assume they knew what was in his mind without any proof was erroneous, period," Gaskins said.

Garrett, 39, worked with the DEA from 2000 to 2006. During that time, he was responsible for 146 arrests that resulted in prison sentences totaling more than 870 years, police said.

Caldwell's comments referred to an incident about an hour after Bailey was shot to death, when Workman and Garrett were talking alone. Workman told Garrett that Bumbry had a gun, though he had not mentioned it to any other officers at the scene.

Caldwell said he's found no evidence that Garrett notified anyone else, though Garrett says he did.

"I do not believe he is a bad officer," Caldwell said, "but I believe he used bad judgment in failing to document and share this very critical information.

"It allows Mr. Workman to come back eight months later in his [first] trial and have a self-defense argument and a police witness to support that argument," while police files held no record that Workman had made such a statement, Caldwell said.

The prosecutor said his Mayberry analogy fit the situation. "I would note that the court itself used the words 'nonresponsive and insubordinate,' and they might want to focus on that," he said.

Caldwell referred to an effort to determine whether Garrett and another Roanoke officer had turned over information in the Workman case that they learned while working with the DEA. The officers replied that they weren't authorized to produce DEA documents, answers that Circuit Court Judge Clifford Weckstein called "nonresponsive and insubordinate."

During a court discussion related to the issue, Caldwell called Gaskins to the stand and cross-examined him under oath as to whether the police department had turned over all its records in the Workman case. Workman's first conviction was overturned because police failed to disclose a piece of evidence.

Caldwell has repeatedly expressed distaste for federal authorities, whom he has accused of "cherry-picking" cases. And he has criticized Roanoke police for referring cases involving felons caught with firearms to the feds rather than arresting them on state charges.

One such felon, Michael Holmes, was later convicted of murder in a fatal shooting he committed after city police referred his case to federal authorities. Another felon, Melvin Douglas, was later involved in a shootout in which seven people were wounded and another killed.

Gaskins has pointed out that federal charges often bring stiffer penalties.

Caldwell has told Gaskins that if a suspect is arrested on a state charge and Caldwell hears that federal authorities are interested in the case, he would drop the state charge.

"Don't use the state as a holding pen to give the federal authorities time to decide whether the case is good enough," Caldwell has said.

reed.williams@roanoke.com 981-3334 mike.allen@roanoke.com 981-3236