Pubdate: Sun, 29 May 2005
Source: Daily Progress, The (VA)
Copyright: 2005 Media General Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.dailyprogress.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1545
Author: Reed Williams
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?237 (Drug Dogs)

COUNTY OFFICER CERTIFIED TO STOP AND SEARCH TRUCKS

Are commercial trucks hauling illegal drugs through Albemarle County?
Local authorities say they're going to find out.

Officer Dennis Harvey has been federally certified to conduct safety
inspections of commercial vehicles. By law, he doesn't need probable
cause to pull them over. The officer typically conducts the checks
during daylight hours, but authorities are planning to start
inspecting trucks at night, and to bring along a drug-sniffing dog.

"The only probable cause I need to pull them over is that they're a
truck," Harvey says.

County police say Harvey is helping to rid the roads of dangerous
trucks. Of the more than 100 commercial vehicles Harvey has inspected
since October, between 60 percent and 80 percent of had serious
violations, such as bad brakes or steering problems, he said.
Nonetheless, the plan to bring in the drug-detection dog has raised
some concern.

Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
of Virginia, said he opposes any searches without probable cause, but
he conceded that the courts generally have not considered the use of
narcotics-detection dogs to be searches.

"The right standard is that cars and trucks should not be stopped
unless there is some individual reason that a crime was committed or a
traffic violation," Willis said. "But using a drug-sniffing dog =85
generally been found not to violate the Fourth Amendment."

County canine Officer Andy Gluba, who will join Harvey on the
nighttime truck stops, said that using a drug-detection dog to sniff
around outside trucks is no different than doing so near a suspicious
vehicle in a parking lot.

"As long as we have a right to be where we are, it's not considered a
search," Gluba said.

Police Cpl. Glenn Fink, who supervises the county's traffic unit, has
been trying for years to get an officer certified to inspect trucks
because he was tired of seeing wrecks caused by overweight or
otherwise unsafe trucks.

"These guys are going to realize now that we have somebody who can do
it locally," Fink said. "They're going to have to pay better attention."

In one incident, a dump truck with six of its eight brakes either out
of adjustment or inoperable couldn't stop behind a school bus as it
dropped off a young girl. The truck narrowly missed her as she tried
to cross the street, and one of its mirrors struck the stop sign on
the bus. Then the truck left the scene.

The next day, police caught up with the truck driver. He was training
a new driver, who was seated in the truck's cab in a kitchen chair.

"Good way to train somebody, huh?" Harvey said.

For Harvey, inspecting trucks is the perfect job. It combines three of
his passions: police work, mechanical work and trucks. The 14-year
county officer used to be a truck driver, and his father, 81, still
drives a truck and inspects his vehicle daily as required, Harvey said.

"It's like a dream come true," he said of his job. "I'm enjoying
life."

"I'm not trying to make money for the county," he added. "I'm trying
to make sure these trucks are safe."

On a sunny day last week, Harvey stood beside the road near the
Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport and directed a forest-green dump
truck to pull over. It would be Harvey's 101st inspection.

The driver, Charles Tomlin, who was hauling sand to a
road-construction site, expressed surprise that county police were
conducting federal Department of Transportation inspections. As far as
he knew, only state troopers in the area were certified.

"When did y'all start doing DOT?" he asked. Then he radioed his boss,
saying he'd be a little late.

"I thought it was a wreck or something," Tomlin said. "I didn't know
what was going on."

Tomlin said he had been stopped for a DOT inspection only one other
time in 12 years as a truck driver. Meanwhile, Harvey went right to
work. He inspected the truck's tires, its brakes, and, to Tomlin's
amazement, he effortlessly opened the truck's 300-to-400-pound hood
without assistance.

"Go ahead, hoss," Tomlin said in disbelief.

"I weigh 250," Harvey said. "It's no problem."

The inspection took about 40 minutes, which Harvey said is typical.
Tomlin insisted from the beginning that he carefully inspects his
truck every day. It turned out that he passed the inspection.

Harvey concluded that one of the truck's eight brakes was out, which
isn't enough for a citation. "I inspect my brakes myself," said
Tomlin, whose truck was carrying more than 16 tons of sand. "That's a
lot of weight rolling down the road if things ain't right."

He said he didn't mind that Albemarle police are conducting DOT
inspections, though he noted that truckers who fail to inspect their
trucks regularly probably wouldn't like it. As word of Harvey's
efforts circulates among local truckers, Tomlin said, drivers will
start using their CB radios to avoid him.

"They'll start ducking and dodging," Tomlin said. "They'll just try to
work around it."

As for the police department's plan to use the narcotics-detection dog
during stops, Tomlin said it doesn't bother him. "I have no problem
with it," he said. "It's a good thing. It's public safety."

Asked if he planned to alert other drivers after he left that Harvey
was out working, Tomlin said he wouldn't.

But as Tomlin turned his truck around and prepared to pull away, the
affable Harvey smiled incredulously.

"Oh, he will."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin