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New Chief Reggie Lloyd Says SLED Assisting FBI in Investigation of DPS Says Video Cam “Does Not Help Us” When It Comes to SC’s National Image Reveals Future Plans May Include Regionalizing Lab Capabilities

On ETV Radio's "The Big Picture on the Radio"

For Immediate Release
March 21, 2008

Columbia, SC... On Friday, Reggie Lloyd, the new chief of South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) told ETV’s “The Big Picture on the Radio” host Andrew Gobeil that SLED agents are going to assist the FBI in looking into incidents of possible misconduct by troopers.

“We have committed to the bureau to assist with their investigation of those incidents from a civil rights standpoint,” said Lloyd. “There may be other issues that we have to look at from state-law violations, and we'll certainly go through that process with them to look at all those incidents, as well as anything else that may be out there...

“...When matters are referred to the criminal division of civil rights at Department of Justice, they will look at those incidents. If there are criminal charges that can be filed, obviously they’ll pursue those. But even when they can’t file criminal charges under the criminal civil rights statutes, they will refer those matters over to the civil side of civil rights, and there may be ways that either they come in and mediate new policies and procedures, or... sometimes they have to file lawsuits against departments in federal court, and have the court impose those, or in drastic situations, there have even been federal monitors imposed on departments.”

When asked if it is time for SLED to go to DPS and review current officer-in-pursuit policies, Lloyd said, “...We are all going to have to have that conversation internally in the law enforcement community in South Carolina.”

In response to how it makes him feel when he sees video-cam footage of the April 28 incident at Columbia Garden Apartments splashed all over the national media, Lloyd said, “...As a South Carolinian, unfortunately, too many times when we make the national news it is in a bad light...that just creates an image in the public’s mind and around the country, I think, that we don’t want.

“We are trying to do better. We’re trying to recruit industry here. We’re trying to recruit jobs here. We want people to come to our universities and stay here. And we want to be seen as a progressive, enlightened state. And unfortunately, these types of incidents don’t help--this type of image that’s broadcast around the country, and around the world, does not help us. We need to get beyond that. So we need to address those issues ourselves here internally.”

Later in the interview, Lloyd spoke about what his top priorities will be during his first several months as chief, including the possible regionalization of SLED’s lab capabilities:

“...One of the things I want to make sure we’re doing is really efficiently spending the dollars that we have. If it means sort of prioritizing and reevaluating where we’re currently devoting personnel, where we’re currently devoting dollars and other resources, it may be that we need to re-look at whether or not we need more lab capabilities.

“We may need to look at down the road--and it may be years down the road--but... do we need to regionalize our lab capabilities? So, those kinds of things are where I want to be focusing my attention as we go through these first few weeks, and first few months, because I think that one of the things we’ve always got to do is take a look at what’s gonna face us two years down the road, five years down the road. What’s the landscape gonna look like? And so I’m a big proponent of trying to push those services out closest to the customer, so to speak. And in this case, our customers are our local law enforcement agencies, and we may look at, long-term, sort of regionalizing some of those capabilities, as well.”

The Big Picture on the Radio can be heard Fridays at 9 a.m. on ETV Radio's four news formats: 88.1-WRJA Sumter, 89.1-WLJK Aiken, 89.9- WJWJ Beaufort, and 90.1-WHMC Conway.

Contact: Catherine Christman at (803) 737-3259 or christman@scetv.org.