Barnes

Rumor has it chief is looking at Zpd's old chief to come here. Just what we need, another moron. Read for yourself.............


NEW PORT RICHEY - Former Zephyrhills Police Chief Russell Barnes, who resigned amid a payroll scandal in August, has applied for a job as a patrol deputy with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.
Barnes, 56, applied online for the job in December.
"We don't comment on applicants," sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said.
Barnes did not return a message seeking comment. He resigned from the Zephyrhills force in August, about an hour before the city council was to decide whether to fire him. He was hired in November 2003.
An internal investigation concluded Barnes created a log documenting flex time that allowed Sgt. Robert Perrault Jr. to justify teaching criminal justice courses at Pasco-Hernando Community College while claiming to be on the city's clock. Perrault was the department's spokesman and head of internal affairs.
The city does not have a policy allowing flex time.
The investigation later concluded that Detective George MacKnight II also was paid by the city while teaching at PHCC.
Perrault resigned from the force to teach at Zephyrhills High School before the investigation was launched. MacKnight was suspended three days without pay and reassigned to patrol duty. Barnes, Perrault and MacKnight each denied wrongdoing.
As Zephyrhills' top cop, Barnes earned more than $74,000 annually.
Starting salary for sheriff's patrol deputies is $17.82 an hour, but people with experience can be hired at a higher rate, Doll said.
Zephyrhills City Manager Steve Spina had recommended Perrault for the Zephyrhills High teaching job, but he said Barnes did not ask if he could list Spina as a reference. Spina had recommended that the city council fire Barnes, whose career achievements parallel well-documented gaffes.
As a sergeant with the Pinellas Park Police Department in 1990, Barnes 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. 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. The signs encouraged people to "Honk if you have a complaint."
Barnes worked for the Pinellas Park police from 1980 to 1991. He previously 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. When he returned to Florida, he was not greatly revered "or greatly missed," said Craig Ritchie, Sequim's city attorney.
The payroll scandal was not the first time Barnes encountered turbulence in Zephyrhills. He faced public ridicule for playing "Asteroids" and other video games on his office computer, battled low morale in the department and came under fire for buying 34 Tasers and several police vehicles without the required city council approval.
Before taking the helm in Zephyrhills, Barnes was an investigator with the Pasco-Pinellas Public Defender's Office.

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 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.

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.

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