New Chief of Police for Clayton County

By Daniel Silliman [email protected] Jeff Turner stood at the sink in the partially-lit bathroom, in front of the mirror, reading a police department press release aloud to himself. He read through the type-written page, saying the words to himself and the mirror. He stumbled over the word "asks." He said "ax," and repeated it three times, trying to get his mouth around the word. Turner stopped, went back to the beginning, and read it again. He was already the highest ranking black officer in the 66-year-history of the Clayton County Police Department, and had been its spokesman for four years. But here he was, in the tiled bathroom of the police department: Nervous. Because on this day, he was no longer speaking for some other man -- who is the chief -- and thus, his boss. He was about to face the media and the public in his first press conference as interim police chief. He would be speaking for himself. Now, some five months later, the "interim" qualifier has been removed from his title. Turner, 43, is the chief. A 20-year-veteran of the force, he is bilingual. He speaks an administrator's language : Pursuits ensue, search warrants are executed, suspects are apprehended. He also speaks in the straight-forward tongue of street-level officers in a way that is admired as "honest" by officers and reporters alike. He uses words like "dead," "shot," "caught," "stomped" and "beat" without trying to pretty-up the short and direct truth. In 1979, it was Turner's ability to express himself, combined with his 16-year-old seriousness, that caught the attention of his high school principal. "He was serious about his conversation," said Dal Turner (no relation,) the principal of Morrow High School from 1968-88. "He was quiet, minded his own business, but at the same time, was articulate in expressing his feelings, his views." The fifth of six children, he is the son a military man. Eddie Turner was a Military Policeman, who wore his uniforms with pride, a strong man who believed in education, service to your country and church attendance. The family settled in Morrow in 1978, began putting down roots and became members of Shiloh Baptist Church in Jonesboro. "From the time we were born," Jeff Turner said, "to the time we became adults, we stayed in church. My father and my mother, they kept us in church. I mean, all day Sundays and twice on Saturdays. Bible studies. Vacation bible schools. Midweek prayer meetings. I think there were, like four services on Sunday." Eddie talked to his children about his time in the military and told war stories from his days as a police officer. Jeff was doing other things, though. He was busy working at the McDonald's in Southlake Mall and falling in love with Darlene, a young lady who walked in for a hamburger one day "looking mighty nice," and started working alongside the young Turner a week later. He was busy graduating from high school in three years. In 1982, he walked off with his diploma and his father gave him two choices: the military or college. It was phrased as a recommendation, but Turner knew it was stronger than that. He didn't really know what he wanted to do. Maybe the thought of becoming a police officer crossed his mind, but he decided to go to college, because he didn't like waking up early in the morning. In his second year at the State College of West Georgia, now West Georgia University, Turner was taking liberal arts courses and found himself listening to a few older students, police officers getting their college degrees. The officers were telling stories. "It sort of reminded me of the way my father would talk," Turner said. "I started taking more and more classes in criminal justice." He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice in 1986 -- not a degree you needed to get a job in law enforcement in the 1980s, said John Fuller, a criminology professor, who taught Turner, but a degree you might get, if you wanted to, someday, become the police chief. Turner, then 23, sent out exactly two job applications: one to the Clayton County Police Department and one to the Clayton County Sheriff's Office. The police department called back first, and Turner joined the county police as the third black officer in a department of 144. That year, he and Darlene were married, and the first of four sons was born. Ronnie Clackum, the chief from 1985 to 2002, recalls the young, college-educated Turner as some one, who made a good impression when he walked in. Clackum said he couldn't have known the 23-year-old would one day have his job, but he and the hiring board liked the well-spoken local boy, and made him an officer. There was also another reason Turner was hired: He was black. "We very aggressively started recruiting African-American officers to the department," Clackum said. Some officers -- Turner describes them as "older," "ignorant" officers afraid of change -- didn't like Turner and other black officers in the county's blue uniform and began a campaign of harassment. "He suffered some abuse," said Rev. Joseph Wheeler, former president of the county's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "A superior called him the 'N' word. Some derogatory remarks were scribbled on paper around the office." A shift was taking place in the county, and Turner and a few other officers were at the very front of the change, meeting the resistance. "Change started happening and people have a hard time accepting change," Turner said. "We did have to deal with ignorant officers. There were comments made. They did use the 'N' word. The word 'sambo' was written on one of my reports. The 'N' word was written on one of my reports. We're talking about the '80s." As more black officers joined the department in the early 1990s, the older officers began retiring, and the racial overtones began to disappear. A shift had taken place, but some black officers believed their was another battle to be fought. In 1994, three of those officers -- Turner, Greg Porter, who is now an administrative captain, and Victor Hill, who is now the county's sheriff -- approached the NAACP for help. "The promotions test that was being used at the time was biased against minorities," Wheeler said. "They had every reason to be promoted, in our opinion. There was just a number of issues that wasn't adding up." The three men, working together, filed an equal opportunity employment complaint against then-chief Clackum, seeking to have the test changed. Clackum shrugs off the complaint, today, five years into his retirement. The complaint wasn't against him personally, he said, and the police department always has more qualified officers than it has open positions. He said that, in general, officers, who receive promotions, think they had it coming, and those who don't get promoted, feel slighted. "You wind up involved, by the very nature of the job, in a lot of conflict, a lot of controversy," he said. "I hired Jeff and I promoted him. Jeff obviously made a good impression. We saw the potential in him. I had a feeling that Jeff would do good in the department -- and he has." Turner, however, felt the system was set up so minority officers weren't given a fair chance. An ambitious 31-year-old detective, he wanted to be promoted and he wanted to rise of the top of the force. "If I'm going to be anywhere, then I'm going to be promoted," Turner said. "I was one of the few people, at the time, that had a college degree. We don't mind being competitive, but give us a fair chance. I had a college degree. I was out there busting my butt." He was promoted, that year, to sergeant, where he got to work with Darrell B. Partain, the officer, who shepherded Turner from rookie to assistant chief. When Turner entered the department, he rode with Partain, then a sergeant. Partain evaluated the young recruit very highly, and every time Partain was promoted, he tried to bring Turner along. Throughout their time together, Partain saw Turner as a highly motivated professional, who held himself and those around him, to the highest possible standards, Partain said. The retired police chief can only remember one time when he disapproved of Turner. Neither man remembers the specifics, but Turner was a rookie, riding along with Partain, and Partain pulled the patrol car to the side of the road and made Turner get out, and stand on the street. "I put him out on the street," Partain said. "I put him out on the corner and told him I'd come back when he was ready. From that day forward, he was always one that lead by example and didn't wait for someone to tell him what to do." When Partain replaced Clackum as police chief in 2002, he wanted to change the department's image as an old, white guy's department, without any new ideas. He met with NAACP leaders in the early days of his administration. Turner was in the meeting, Wheeler said. "He wanted to show me his confidence in Jeff Turner. He wanted to tell me that things were going to be a little bit different," Wheeler said. Partain almost immediately made Turner the department's spokesman. "Jeff represents change," Partain said. "We have to accept the fact that when you see a white, white-haired chief, it looks like he's been there since Noah built the ark. It's always good to bring in new ideas. With someone like him, you do get change." With the white-haired chief behind him for four years, and two, white county commissioners strongly supporting him, Turner also carried forward the tradition of the department, rising up through the ranks and confirming the idea that hard work and leadership will be rewarded in the department and in the county. Unanimously appointed to the chief's position by the county commissioners on March 20, Turner became the department's 10th leader and its first black chief. County commissioners described Turner as a force for change in the county and as continuing the good work the department has done. Maj. Doug Jewett, who listed Clackum as a reference when he ran against Turner for the open chief's position, said everyone is confident in the new chief. Turner has, he said, the support of the county government and the support of the officers in the department. He's able to combine new ideas, like community-oriented policing, with older, more traditional police work, such as aggressive patrols. Jewett ran against Turner, but when Turner won, he appointed Jewett to a new committee to develop the department's progressive strategies. An apparent example of his even-handedness, and that he doesn't hold a grudge against a man, who could be viewed as a former rival. A week after he was appointed to the police chief position, TV reporters gathered in an open room on the first floor of the department's headquarters. A TV reporter congratulated Turner and said, "Are you still going to answer our phone calls?" Turner laughed, easily and comfortably. He teased the cameraman, "Rarely, if ever," he said. Standing in front of the microphones clustered on a podium, with the TV cameras on and a half dozen officers -- white and black -- lined up at attention behind him, Chief Turner began to read a press release. He had been the department's spokesman for years. He had fought with his own department. Now, here he is, the department's leader. Speaking for himself.