Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jun 2002
Source: Winston-Salem Journal (NC)
Copyright: 2002 Piedmont Publishing Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.journalnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/504
Note: The Journal does not publish letters from writers outside its daily 
home delivery circulation area.
Author: Victoria Cherrie

Dodging Bullets

CHALLENGED SHERIFF TALKS UP HIS RECORD, DEFENDS HIS FAMILY, WANTS TO DO MORE

Sheriff Ron Barker feels in the mood. He ditches the cheddar cheese cubes 
and Club crackers he was going to eat at his desk for lunch and drives over 
to the Healy Drive K&W Cafeteria.

Sporting his brown dress uniform and black leather boots, Barker hardly 
gets through the cafeteria door before the handshakes and hellos from the 
mostly silver-haired crowd begin. The women behind the counter call him 
"sir" as they fork beef liver and plop mashed potatoes with gravy on his plate.

"Thanks, darlin', " Barker says, a playful smirk taking years off his 
weathered smile.

Lunch and dessert polished off, Barker drags slowly on a Vantage.

Back at his office, he has a closed-door meeting with a team of narcotics 
officers about a case involving cocaine being brought here from Florida. He 
looks like a kid awaiting Christmas listening to the details of how the 
sting will go down. And before his deputies can finish, he is already 
calculating how much money a conviction might bring.

Barker has made law enforcement his life for more than 30 years.

As a young deputy, he was responsible for starting hundreds of 
community-watch programs. He made a name for himself as a homicide 
investigator, supervising, among others, the Klenner-Lynch-Newsom murder, a 
case turned into the best-selling book Bitter Blood.

Barker rose through the ranks to captain before making his first run for 
sheriff.

As a Republican sheriff for the past 12 years, Barker has exuded a folksy 
charm publicly, but that's a sharp contrast to the image inside his empire, 
where he is known as a behind-the-scenes operator supported by an inner 
circle built and run on unwavering loyalty to the boss.

Today, at 69, Barker is seeking a fourth term, which should be a shoo-in 
for an incumbent sheriff of his standing.

Yet Barker finds himself in a race against a handful of his own deputies, 
and former deputies, in what could be his most challenging campaign.

And in his own circles, some have deemed him irrelevant.

When President Bush came to town in February, Barker wasn't invited to a 
roundtable discussion on community safety initiatives that included local 
police, emergency and fire officials. His tickets to the president's speech 
at Joel Coliseum came from a friend, not the Republican Party. He did not 
attend a debate sponsored by the Republican's Men's Club, because of issues 
he had with the format - they wouldn't let him speak last.

Unfazed, Barker plods on, making appearances at schools, shaking hands with 
strangers.

"I know I've worked hard and there's a lot of people out there who also 
know it," Barker says. "I have a lot more support from the average citizens 
in the community than people know."

Successes, Problems

As the sheriff, Barker directs more than 400 employees, manages the county 
jail and oversees a $27 million budget.

During his tenure, the crime rate in Forsyth County has been stable; 
homicides and rapes have decreased, following a national trend; property 
crimes have risen slightly.

Barker attributes the rise to an increase in population and a residential 
building boom, which leads to more burglaries. He has complained to county 
commissioners that he has the same number of patrol deputies that he had in 
1990. And although the county's territory is shrinking as the city annexes 
more land, he argues that his 56 patrol deputies go to twice as many calls 
as they did in 1990.

Barker does have about 80 more sworn officers and civilians working for 
him. He says that those extra jobs have traditionally gone to the jail, 
which eats up most of his manpower and budget.

The sheriff points to his record as evidence that he should be re-elected, 
reeling off specifics.

He says that his agency has seized $3.2 million in drug forfeitures, money 
that has paid for cameras in schools and in patrol cars, and training for 
deputies. Each year, Barker traditionally has given about $50,000 from the 
forfeiture pot to Forsyth County schools.

Barker says that his department also is responsible for much new equipment, 
including a computerized simulator that poses situations in which deputies 
must decide whether to use force. Barker says he has reduced inmate 
transports from the jail through video arraignments and improved the 
medical-screening process in the jail.

Few argue with his successes.

It's the other stuff that accounts for his struggle.

Since he last ran in 1998, Barker has skirted a sexual harassment lawsuit 
filed by a former secretary. She accused him of knowing that Robert 
Blakely, a former chief deputy who is also a Republican candidate for 
sheriff, had touched her, grabbed her and propositioned her repeatedly. 
Settling her claim cost Forsyth County $150,000.

Recently, the sheriff and his office were exonerated of wrongdoing in the 
arrest last year of 21-year-old Nakia Glenn. Two of Barker's deputies 
stopped Glenn under the suspicion of driving while impaired. After an 
altercation in which one of the deputies used a flashlight to strike the 
suspect, Glenn went into a coma. Doctors later said Glenn's coma resulted 
from his swallowing 27 grams of cocaine during the arrest and not from the 
beating from the deputies.

Barker also has been plagued by nepotism problems since he took office.

In 1999, the sheriff's son, Brian Barker, a former deputy, shot himself and 
then made up a story that two Hispanic men had attacked him. At the time, 
Brian Barker was a Forsyth County sheriff's deputy. He resigned.

The sheriff's grandson, Kevin Barker, also works in the department, which 
has created dissension among some deputies, who sarcastically call Barker 
"Paw-Paw." Also in 1999, Kevin was chasing a suspect at about 100 mph when 
he wrecked his Camaro.

State troopers said that the single-car wreck was his fault and that he was 
not properly trained to drive the vehicle at high speed. The sheriff 
defended his grandson, saying that Kevin did everything he could to avoid 
the accident.

That incident and others leads some deputies to say that members of the 
sheriff's family or his friends who work for the department don't have to 
follow the chain of command and are promoted to supervisory positions 
without necessary qualifications.

"Part of that is the sheriff's good-heartedness," says one deputy who did 
not want his name used, fearing retribution. "But the fact is, business is 
business and family and friends are something else."

Barker's supporters deny the charges of favoritism.

"The man loves his family. We hired his children; who don't?" says 
Undersheriff Robert Joyce, Barker's second-in-command and loyal defender. 
"Look at other departments."

The sheriff says he and his family have moved forward, and he hopes that 
the community can do the same.

"There are a lot of families in this county, across the state and country 
that's got problems," Joyce says. "All families have problems."

A Different Life

Barker was born and raised in Thomasville and now lives in Kernersville. In 
high school, he worked the second shift at Wrenn's Hosiery, molding socks 
on hot irons for hours on end.

"My hands got so hot I could just about strike a match on them and I 
wouldn't feel a thing," Barker says.

After high school, Barker worked as a freezer salesman for Sears and met 
his wife, Pat, who was dating one of his friends.

"I always told him if he would break up with her then I was going to take 
her out," he says. "I moved in quickly."

They've been married 47 years.

Barker served in the U.S. Army for a few years.

He earned a bachelor of science degree in biology from Wake Forest 
University and became a schoolteacher in Kernersville. Like his diamond 
wedding band, his gold class ring rarely comes off.

Over the years, Barker began craving a career in law enforcement. He 
explored the job by riding with deputies across Forsyth County.

"It hit me quick," Barker says, slapping his hands together. Back then, the 
sheriff himself dispatched calls, and deputies weren't required by law to 
have any law-enforcement training, he says.

After months of riding, Barker started volunteering at the jail in hopes 
that his efforts would get noticed by Sheriff Ernie Shore. He was hired in 
1969.

"I learned quickly that it takes a lot more than just qualifications to be 
a good sheriff's deputy," he says. "After a while on the street, you 
realize you are living a different life."

When you are on patrol, he says, you see the county a completely different 
way, and you mostly see people at their worst.

Barker says he doesn't drink, after having grown up with a father who was 
an alcoholic. When he's home, he's either sitting outside by the pool or 
relaxing in his recliner, watching television.

Yet even when he's off duty, Barker rides around the county, often stopping 
at convenience stores, restaurants and supermarkets to chat. He gets around 
plenty while on the job, too. In fact, that's led to criticism about his 
not being in the office.

But his cellular phone is with him 24-7. And he gives the number to 
everyone, from staffers to the district attorney to reporters.

Barker's family members declined to be interviewed for this story. And 
Barker, who grows quiet and contemplative when discussing his family, makes 
no apologies.

Over the years, they have endured the fallout from the incidents that did 
happen and dealt with many rumors.

As he enjoys a cigarette to its nub, Barker's raspy Southern drawl is blunt 
in response:

"It's all lies."

All About Loyalty

Barker walks with confidence, occasionally throwing back his shoulders and 
pulling up his gun holster and belt. He speaks slowly and is a master at 
small talk. Most people will tell you that he is kind, especially to 
schoolchildren.

Nancy Holston found this out when she asked the sheriff to help with a 
troubled friend in jail. After hearing her story, the sheriff took the 
inmate a Bible and a couple of menthol cigarettes, and visited him in his 
cell, she said.

"I used to have a bad opinion of Ron Barker based on what I read," Holston 
said. "But now I know he is a good person. He is a quiet giant."

Likewise, in some corners of his department, Barker is considered a 
hands-on leader who often rolls up to crime scenes in his blue Crown 
Victoria to offer investigative tips. He's talked a few people out of 
committing suicide.

Yet he also doesn't like to be crossed, and some consider him mean-spirited.

Though he doesn't yell, scream or lose his temper, his actions surface in 
memos or directives he gives to others to carry out.

Earlier this year, for example, Capt. Jack Reich was transferred from the 
criminal-investigation division to work in the courthouse. It came after 
Reich complained about a reception for Barker being too expensive for some 
employees, who felt pressured to attend.

Barker became a law officer at a time when, more than training or skill, 
deputies earned promotion by loyalty to the boss. Some deputies say 
nothing's changed.

In 1986, Barker was demoted from overseeing the detective division to 
working in the radio room after losing a challenge to Sheriff Preston 
Oldham in the Democratic primary.

Barker then resigned and wound up back at Sears, this time selling alarm 
systems. But he wasn't through with the sheriff's office.

In 1990, he became a Republican, his initial party affiliation, and ran 
against Oldham again, defeating him with the help of Joyce, a longtime 
Democratic operative.

Oldham had defeated Joyce in the Democratic primary, leading Joyce to jump 
camp and join Barker.

His reward? Barker made Joyce his special assistant. They've been together 
ever since.

Barker says he believes that the kind of person you are has as much to do 
with your job performance as training and experience. It's the reason he 
isn't concerned that Joyce couldn't graduate from the state-mandated Basic 
Law Enforcement Training program because of a degenerative muscle disease 
in his legs.

Although he lauds Joyce for skillfully handling the department's budget and 
boosting revenue with drug forfeitures, Barker says little about Joyce's 
attempt in 1998 to allow nursing-home magnate Steve Pierce to exceed the 
legal contribution limit to Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker's campaign for governor.

Joyce says he respects that loyalty is everything to Barker, whose office 
is next door to his.

"I don't do anything without talking to the sheriff," Joyce says. "We talk 
about everything."

They have to - Joyce is Barker's campaign manager.

To Barker, the latest campaign is about unfinished business.

He says that after 12 years in office the department is finally close to 
building a much-needed firing range. His staff is getting ready to create a 
unit to crack down on domestic violence, and his battle against drug 
dealers in Forsyth County is hotter than ever.

Barker says he is not bothered by the fact that the Democratic and 
Republican tickets are cluttered with former employees, such as former 
Assistant Sheriff Allen Gentry and Assistant Sheriff C.C. McGee.

He says he is also not bothered about a small clique of Republicans who 
don't support him.

He took a poll this spring to gauge his support. He won't fully reveal the 
results, but Joyce says that about 40 percent of voters approve of Barker 
over his competition.

"There's just so much to be done," Barker says. "I'm not sure this 
department has gone as high as it can."
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