TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Barnes' Career Has Highs, Gaffes

ADVERTISEMENT

By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 20, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS - As a sergeant with the Pinellas Park Police Department, Russell Barnes was suspended two days without pay for accidentally firing a gun inside the police station.

Years later, as Zephyrhills' police chief, he faced public ridicule for playing "Asteroids" and other video games on his office computer.

Barnes, who made $74,090 a year, resigned as the city's top police officer Tuesday after an investigation concluded he had falsified payroll records.

City Manager Steve Spina had recommended the city council fire Barnes, whose career highlights in law enforcement are paralleled by well-documented gaffes.

Since being hired in November 2003, Barnes battled low morale in the department and came under fire for buying 34 Tasers and several police vehicles without the required city council approval.

Barnes' most recent performance evaluation in December was satisfactory, but Spina said the chief's performance was not regularly scrutinized.

"I get evaluated annually, but we don't do it consistently" among department heads, Spina said. "That might be something to look at. Evaluations are often an opportunity to bring up different things."

Barnes and Sgt. Robert Perrault were put on paid leave July 29, after a former police officer fired by Barnes filed a complaint alleging that the chief had falsified records to cover up for Perrault.
Perrault was accused of "double-dipping" - getting paid for hours at the police department when he was teaching criminal justice classes at Pasco-Hernando Community College.
Perrault announced his resignation Aug. 8 to take a job teaching criminal justice at Zephyrhills High School. Both men have denied doing anything improper.

Payroll Situation Is 'A New Level'

During Barnes' tenure, Spina says he tried to support the former chief, under whom, he said, the police department made "a lot of progress."

But after the records issue came to light, Spina's support eroded.

"I just thought this was a situation that brought us to a new level," he said.

According to Barnes' resume, he worked for the Pinellas Park Police Department from 1980 to 1991.

In April 1990, Barnes, then a sergeant, was talking on the telephone when he accidentally pulled the trigger of a 9 mm gun, sending a bullet through a desk lamp, two rooms, a trash can and into a baseboard.

"I then terminated my telephone conversation," Barnes wrote to an internal affairs investigator, adding that he had forgotten a round was still in the chamber.

No one was injured.

Three months later, Barnes received a written reprimand for placing magnetic signs on agency vehicles driven by the police chief and captains.

Barnes collected money from other officers to pay for the signs, which encouraged people to "Honk if you have a complaint."

The joke was meant to boost morale.

"We'd been thinking for several weeks ... the place maybe needed a good practical joke of monumental proportions to kind of loosen things up a little bit," he told an investigator at the time.

But Barnes' superiors didn't see the humor.

"The turmoil that resulted from the investigation was a discourtesy to the entire department," his supervisor, Lt. C.R. Reid, wrote in a report.

Before joining the Pinellas Park department, Barnes worked for six years at the St. Petersburg Police Department.

Barnes left Pinellas Park for Sequim, Wash., where he was police chief from 1991 to 1996. The city of slightly more than 5,300 is on Washington's north coast.

He was not greatly revered "or greatly missed," said Craig Ritchie, Sequim's city attorney. "He was here and did police chief work."

Ritchie said Barnes spent much of his time instructing his officers on "how to make better cases."

"It was not a real aggressive kind of thing, just improving policing procedures," Ritchie said.

When he left, Barnes told the Sequim Gazette that he was returning to Florida to reunite with his wife and children, who had moved back after the death of his father-in-law.

He Seemed Like 'The Right Person'

Barnes was hired as Zephyrhills police chief in 2003 after working as a criminal investigator for the Pasco-Pinellas Public Defender's office in New Port Richey.

In 2003, Paul Firmani, then a senior assistant public defender in west Pasco County, said he had mixed feelings about Barnes' departure. "I'm very happy that he got the job, but I'm sorry to see him go," said Firmani, now a Pasco County judge. "I think the people he works for, the citizens and the officers, will quickly realize he'll be a great leader."

Barnes first applied for the Zephyrhills police chief position after Robert Howell retired in 2002 but did not get an interview. He applied again the following year, after Jerry Freeman was asked to resign.

Spina and Mayor Cliff McDuffie headed the search committee tasked with finding Freeman's replacement.

In 2003, McDuffie said he was impressed with Barnes' outgoing nature, sense of humor and meticulous planning.

"I have a good feeling about him," he said.

Spina said then that he liked Barnes' approach toward community-oriented policing and called him "the right person at the right time."

Reporter Christian M. Wade and editor Jeff Scullin contributed to this report. Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT