Published on Monday, December 17, 2007

Locklear case draws strong reactions

Viewpoints seem to differ for women and men

Some are sympathetic to discrimination claims

by Tom McKinney

Full Disclosure & Caution: The author is a 53 year-old, married, white male. The author currently lives in Fayetteville and reports on Raeford & Hoke County from an "outside looking in" perspective. Be cautious, as our quick survey of community reaction, presented below, was not made using "scientific methods" and the results could have been skewed by many different factors.

A group of Kevin Locklear supporters, who were quickly gaining momentum on their petition-signing and telephone lobbying efforts on behalf of Mr. Locklear, suddenly learned on Friday that the City of Raeford had already fired him. There has been some speculation in the community that the city's announcement of the firing was made on a faster timetable than originally planned to prevent Locklear supporters from influencing the decision. However, it has not been possible to contact City Manager Richard Douglas to confirm or deny the substance of the speculation.

Efforts by www.RaefordNews.com to gauge the community reaction to the firing by talking to shoppers, at Raeford's two Food Lion locations, produced strong citizen reactions that, in most cases, seemed related to an individual's gender. Most women shoppers that were willing to speak to us felt it was appropriate for the city to fire Kevin Locklear, often pointing out that handling domestic disturbances is an important aspect of police work. On the other hand, although men seemed less willing to share their opinions with us, most of those who responded expressed the opinion that the city should not have fired him. They often pointed to the fact that the charges had been dismissed, with Mr. Locklear agreeing to attend counseling.

We also tried to gauge reaction to Mr. Locklear's charge that the city discriminated against him, as a minority member, during his years serving as chief of police. One of the individuals involved in efforts to rally support for Mr. Locklear has indicated that some individuals withdrew their support after hearing news reports of the discrimination charge. However, during our talks with shoppers, we found that minorities were generally sympathetic to his complaint of discrimination by city officials. Surprisingly, even some of the women who felt it appropriate to fire Mr. Locklear voiced sympathy with his claims of discrimination by city officials.

Article Published on Thursday, November 15, 2007

Police Chief Locklear's Case to be Handled by State

Locklear faces charges of assaulting his wife

Attorney General's "special prosecutions section" will handle case

(link to www.nccourts.org/County/Hoke/Staff/)

(link to www.ncdoj.com)

Staff Report

Noelle Talley with the North Carolina Attorney General's Office has confirmed that their "special prosecutions section" will be handling the case involving assault charges against Raeford Police Chief Kevin Locklear.

Locklear's wife pressed assault charges against him earlier this week. A temporary restraining order has been issued that prohibits Locklear from going near his wife.

The District Attorney, Kristy Newton, would normally be the one to handle the case. However, it is not unusual for the District Attorney to request that the North Carolina Attorney General's Office handle the prosecution in cases involving a public official who in the past has worked closely with the District Attorney. In this case, District Attorney Newton made that request to the AG's Office on Wednesday and the "special prosecutions section" then agreed to handle the case.

The next step is for the AG's Special Prosecutor to investigate the specifics of the case and determine if charges should be pressed against Chief Locklear.

Asked if the case would be tried in Hoke County or Raleigh, Noelle Talley indicated that the Special Prosecutor usually tries to prosecute cases locally, rather than in Raleigh.