Police and Prostitutes...

When I 1st read this I was like, "More Cops & Hoes?"

This was 1st printed in The Rhino Times, a conservative weekly newspaper. The article is also on The Rhino Times website in G'boro & the original link is below:

http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/story.html?id=1696

The story's really a trip!

I wanna know who Jerry's source is...

================================================================

Police and Prostitutes - Part 8
By Jerry Bledsoe

This is the eighth installment in an ongoing series of previously unpublished work by best-selling author Jerry Bledsoe documenting the controversy that rocked the Greensboro Police Department earlier this year. This installment contains some adult content that we do not consider appropriate for children. If this installment was made into a movie, we think it would be rated NC-17 or R. We have included the offensive language and descriptions because we believe they are integral to the telling of this important story. We apologize to those of you who are offended and ask you to consider that this story is about Greensboro police officers, men and women who are charged with the important duty of protecting us and who take an oath that they will “be alert and vigilant to enforce the criminal laws of this state.”

Before he became police chief, David Wray was aware of two questionable incidents involving Lt. James Hinson, and another that was disturbing because of the tension and division that it brought to the department.

All of these incidents had taken place over a period of nearly three years while Robert White, Hinson’s friend, was chief. None had resulted in disciplinary action, or even investigation, although some commanders thought that they should have.

The most recent happened on Dec. 5, 2002, less than a month before White left to become chief of the new Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky, and fewer than eight months before Wray replaced him as chief.

Hinson was involved in a traffic accident while on duty in his city-issued Ford Crown Victoria. It occurred at 11 p.m. on South Holden Road. Hinson was headed south when a 2002 Dodge driven by a 25-year-old woman, traveling north, went into a skid, spun around, crossed the median and struck Hinson’s police vehicle. Nobody was hurt, but $1,500 in damage was done to the Crown Victoria, $1,800 to the Dodge.

The accident clearly wasn’t Hinson’s fault and would not have been a matter for concern other than for a couple of complications.

Hinson had a passenger. Her name was Gaetana Gaynelle Lavonne Brooks, known as Gayle. She was four years older than Hinson, and was later described in police records as his girlfriend at the time, who would become his fiancée. Hinson, however, was still married to his second wife of nearly six years, Beverly, and did not file for divorce until nearly three years later on Nov. 23, 2005.

The second complication was that Brooks had a record of bad check charges and traffic violations. Her driver’s license had been suspended from Dec. 11, 2001 until July 13, 2004. And at the time of the accident a warrant was outstanding against her for failure to appear on a bad check charge.

Police Department regulations allow for what are called “ride-alongs.” Any citizen can apply to accompany a patrol officer on his or her rounds, but usually this activity is restricted to people with valid purposes – a reporter, a public or civic official, a photographer or TV camera operator. A ride-along requires advance notice, and the person taking it usually is assigned randomly to a willing officer.

The watch commander decides who can take a ride-along and assigns the person to an officer. The watch commander is required to do an inquiry, including a criminal history check, to determine the suitability of the person’s participation. If an outstanding warrant is discovered, the officer is required to detain the person and the ride-along would be to a magistrate’s office. If there is no such finding, a waiver form has to be filled out by the watch officer and signed by the participant.

Later, some commanders learned that no document authorizing the ride-along with Hinson had been filled out in advance, yet one appeared in the file after the accident. It authorized the time of the ride-along to be from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. On the line requiring the signature of the participant, Brooks’ name was printed. The required signature of the watch officer was missing.
Word about this unseemly incident spread through the department’s rumor mill.
Thirteen days after the accident, Brooks came to the office of Magistrate M.A. Williams. The outstanding warrant was served on her by a Guilford County sheriff’s deputy. She was released on $500 bond, and word eventually was leaked to the news media that Hinson was believed to have posted it. North Carolina law forbids law enforcement officers to post bond for anybody other than an immediate family member.

Several months later, reporters called the chief’s office and the district attorney’s office inquiring about the accident and the bond posting. But no news stories about either were forthcoming.

Some commanders thought that a departmental inquiry should be held but considered that unlikely as long as White still was chief (he already had announced his departure). According to several commanders, the department’s standards about matters such as this had been disregarded by White, who tolerated on-duty officers picking up family or friends and taking them places in their patrol cars.

Later, when Tony Scales was interim chief, and Randall Brady commanded Internal Affairs, Brady said that he asked Scales about looking into Hinson’s unusual ride-along. Scales, he said, told him, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve taken care of it.” No disciplinary action ever was taken against Hinson in the matter, however.

This was not Hinson’s first accident involving a questionable situation while on duty. Another occurred early in 2000, and no accident report ever was filed. Hinson was a sergeant at the time. Although Wray had heard rumors about this incident, it would not be confirmed for more than five years.

Hinson was on second shift. Late into the shift, his black Crown Victoria went into a slide, crossed the other lane, left the road and struck a sign on Summit Avenue near Fire Station 14. Rain had been falling earlier and the road was wet. No other vehicles were involved, and Hinson was not responding to a call at the time.

Hinson called his on-duty corporal, Berkley Blanks, on his cell phone and told him that he’d had an accident and needed assistance.

Blanks, who had been with the department much longer than Hinson, later told investigators that he arrived to find the car in a church parking lot. The driver’s side mirror had been sheered off, and the side of the car was damaged.

Blanks said that he understood that Hinson had been at the home of a friend, Sgt. Steve Snipes, watching the Super Bowl game with other officers while on duty. He said he didn’t smell any alcohol on Hinson’s breath.

Hinson was upset, Blanks remembered, and said that he didn’t know what to do.
“I told him that he had two decisions to make – either call the watch commander, or take the car to the ‘outline’ to be fixed,” Blanks told investigators years later.
Hinson, he recalled, asked about the second option, “How can you do that?”
“I told him, ‘Do you think the body man knows when an investigation is done on a motor vehicle wreck? He just fixes the car.’”

Hinson made the decision not to call the watch commander and report the accident, as required by department rules. Anytime a car was damaged an administrative review had to be held.
Blanks said that he followed Hinson to the city garage, where Hinson put the car out of service. Blanks then delivered him and his personal gear to the Police Department parking lot.
After investigators talked to Blanks, a record was found of repairs made to a Crown Victoria with those damages early in February 2000, at a cost of $455.

Blanks told investigators that Hinson never asked him not to talk about the accident, nor did he offer him anything for not doing so. He and Hinson had not talked about it since, he said.
Asked why he didn’t inform the watch commander himself, Blanks responded that he didn’t know why. He then said, “You know, he’s my boss.”

Blanks, a candidate for sheriff of Guilford County, declined to be interviewed for this article. “I am a GPD reserve officer and all officers have direct orders from the city manager not to talk about this issue,” he responded in an email.

The third incident also happened in 2000 and no record of it exists either. But it, far more than the other two, held portent for what eventually would happen to David Wray.
Corporal Janice Rogers, who is white, was on patrol on High Point Road after midnight when she spotted a car driving very slowly near Veasley Street and stopped it to see what the problem was. The driver was James Hinson. He was off duty, in civilian clothing, driving his personal car. Rogers recognized him when she got close enough to see his face.

Hinson was angry. He accused Rogers of racial profiling. She had stopped him only because he was a black male driving a luxury car, he claimed.
“He pitched a fit,” David Wray recalled.

Hinson later made an issue of the stop in the department, and it was widely discussed, according to Wray and others, although most officers thought that Rogers was only doing her job and that Hinson was unfairly maligning her. No disciplinary action resulted. From that point, however, Rogers would become the subject of a series of complaints lodged by black officers close to Hinson.

Now a lieutenant, Rogers, like all other officers, has been instructed not to talk about Hinson, or other matters involving the Police Department, and was not interviewed for this article.
When Randall Brady came to brief David Wray about sensitive issues within the department during Wray’s first week as chief at the beginning of August 2003, he had only incomplete information to convey about the two officers and a Police Department employee whose names had emerged from a major federal drug investigation 10 months earlier.

That investigation had resulted in the arrest of Greensboro resident Elton Turnbull, a member of an international cocaine cartel. Information provided by Turnbull had brought about the capture of one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, James Spencer Springette, little more than a month later in Venezuela. Springette was leader of the Island Boys cartel.

In hopes of reducing his own sentence, Turnbull also was providing information – at great risk to himself and his family – that would lead to other arrests, some of them in Greensboro.
Greensboro officers had to wait four months for their first chance to talk to Turnbull, who was being held without bond. Special Intelligence Division Officer Scott Sanders and Federal Task Force Detective Brian Bissette of Vice and Narcotics conducted the first interview.

One of their goals was to find out if the two officers and a non-sworn Police Department employee whose names had emerged in the Turnbull investigation had received payments from him, or helped him in any way.

Officer Larry Patterson had been observed making regular visits to Turnbull’s house, and investigators had discovered that he was the brother of Turnbull’s wife, Cathy. Was he also working on Turnbull’s behalf?

Turnbull said that neither Patterson nor his wife knew about his drug operations. He boasted that he thought he had done a good job of putting up a legitimate front and avoiding suspicion.
However, at least one dealer who was a major customer had told federal officers that he had purchased cocaine from Turnbull in Cathy Turnbull’s presence. Surveillance had shown that dealers, suppliers and others involved in Turnbull’s drug operations constantly were in and out of the house that Turnbull occupied with his wife.

Why were the personal and office telephone numbers of Lt. James Hinson and the office number of Police Department employee Clinton Williams, a friend of Hinson’s, found in a hidden safe in Turnbull’s house?

He said that he didn’t know Clinton Williams and had no idea why his number was in his safe. He did acknowledge knowing James Hinson, but said he had no role in his organization.
He first met Hinson in 1994 or 1995 when Turnbull was working at Lowe’s Home Improvement on Battleground Avenue. Hinson worked there off-duty providing security. They didn’t get to know each other well, he said, and rarely talked. Hinson spent most of his time trying to pick up women, Turnbull noted, while people stole stuff right in front of him.

After that, Turnbull said, he had no contact with Hinson until he became sexually involved with a dancer at Twiggy’s, a strip club on Davie Street. Her name was Toshia Withers. She rented a house from James Hinson at 3106 Fieldale Road. Turnbull was there one day soon after beginning his relationship with Withers in the spring of 1997 when Hinson stopped by in uniform, ostensibly to see about the rent.

“Hey, remember me?” Turnbull recalled saying as he reintroduced himself to Hinson. “I used to work at Lowe’s.”
Hinson vaguely remembered him, he recalled, but had little to say. Not until later would Turnbull learn that Hinson may have had other reasons for stopping by.

In time, Turnbull recruited Withers to be a courier in his drug operations. Another dancer at Twiggy’s, Bridgett Holman Ekwensi, already was transferring money and drugs for Turnbull. Withers and Ekwensi were friends, and Ekwensi, who also had been involved in a sexual relationship with Turnbull, had introduced him to Withers.

After talking with Turnbull, Officer Sanders and Detective Bissette conducted preliminary interviews with Withers and Ekwensi, turning up some intriguing information.
Turnbull had informed on both women, and indictments already had been issued at the time that Randall Brady told David Wray about the situation, although neither woman had yet been arrested. The investigation was on hold until it could be determined whether the two women were willing to talk more after their arrests. Attempting to interview them further at present might hinder the federal case.

“Does Tony know about this?” Wray remembered asking Brady. Tony Scales had been interim chief for seven months after the departure of Robert White, during which time Turnbull and the two women had been interviewed.

“He said, ‘Yes, Tony knows about it,’” Wray recalled. “I said, ’Is there any way we can move forward on this thing and bring closure to it?’ He said, ‘No we can’t, because we don’t know exactly what we’ve got.”

The situation had to be coordinated with the US Attorney, the FBI and DEA, Brady said. “It’s possible it goes nowhere, or possible it could go a good ways,” Wray remembered Brady telling him. “What we’ve got to do is keep our eye on James Hinson and just continue on.”
Keeping an eye on Hinson would not be so difficult in the next few weeks. He was about to bring himself to the forefront of the chief’s attention as well as again inserting himself into the news.
Wray was preparing to make his first promotions as chief. He wanted to put in place people to help dismantle most of the former chief’s radical changes. It was common knowledge in the department that promotions soon would be announced. Only a short time after Brady briefed Wray about the Turnbull case, Hinson came to see Wray.

He thought that he deserved to be promoted to captain and wanted to make sure that he was being considered, said Wray, who told him he would think about it. Soon afterward, Dorothy Brown, a well-known community activist in the Ole Asheboro neighborhood where Hinson once patrolled on foot, came to see Wray. She told him she’d heard that he may be considering promoting a black female lieutenant, Annie Stevenson, Wray said.

He acknowledged that was a possibility. Brown didn’t want him to do that, Wray recalled. The person who should be promoted, she felt, was James Hinson. Wray said that he’d consider her recommendation and thanked her for coming. He had little doubt that Hinson was behind her visit.

Wray announced promotions on August 21, during his fourth week in office. He appointed two new assistant chiefs, Randall Brady and Tim Bellamy. Bellamy, who had joined the department two years after Wray and Brady, was undergoing training at the FBI National Academy at the time. He would command District 1 in northeast Greensboro, while Brady would oversee District 2 in the southeastern sector.

Wray decided to reinstate the position of deputy chief, which had been dropped by White. To fill that job, he appointed Tony Scales, who was the senior assistant chief. Scales had informed Wray of his intention to retire in a year. Both Scales and Bellamy are black.
Three officers were promoted to captain – Richard Hunt, Chris Walker and Annie Stevenson. Matt Lojko, George Hunt and Janice Rogers (who had drawn Hinson’s ire for making a traffic stop on him) were promoted to lieutenant.

The announcement didn’t please Hinson, said Wray. “He was resentful.”
Greensboro appeared to be on the way to setting a new record for homicides in 2003, and near the end of August Tony Scales told Wray that the Pulpit Forum – a group of black ministers who often were involved in controversial political and social issues, including campaigning for a police review board – was planning to hold a “Stop the Violence” rally, which would be called “The Gathering.”

Scales indicated that this was something the ministers were going to do whether the department got involved or not, Wray remembered. It likely would draw a lot of news media attention, he recalled Scales saying, and the department might as well get on board. Wray thought that this had come up quickly and wasn’t certain that it could do much to stop homicides. The department’s participation, however, would express concern about the situation, and offer sympathy to the victims’ families. After discussing the matter with his assistant chiefs, he gave his OK and even agreed to be a speaker.

Not until later did he learn that this was another James Hinson production, his biggest yet.
Hinson told News & Record reporter Cynthia Jeffries that the idea for it came to him in July when a black teenager told him that he looked forward to his own death because he might be idolized if he died in a drive-by shooting or a drug deal gone bad.

“That statement bothered Hinson,” wrote Jeffries, “because death should not be a goal that the next generation sets for itself.”

Hinson said that he took the idea to black ministers and contacted hip-hop music producers and former local cable access TV host Timothy X to support the rally. Many of the city’s murder victims were black, as usually were their killers, and the majority of those homicides were drug connected.

Hundreds of people, including top Police Department commanders, turned out for The Gathering, which received wide TV and newspaper coverage. The speaking, preaching and praying went on for more than three hours at Mount Zion Baptist Church in southeast Greensboro on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 21. Greensboro had experienced its 27th murder of the year the night before when a 19-year-old woman was shot at a restaurant.
Monday morning’s article about The Gathering in the News & Record began with a quote from the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by James Hinson.

“I have a dream that as of Sept. 21, 2003, Greensboro will not have another homicide.”
Hinson’s dream proved to be predictably unrealistic. The murder rate, which had set an average pace of three per month for the first nine months of the year, increased on average by one per month after The Gathering, closing the year at a new record – 39 – making Greensboro per capita the most murderous of North Carolina’s six largest cities, and one of the most murderous in the nation for cities of its size.

By year’s end, detectives Scott Sanders and Brian Bissette had undertaken several more interviews with Elton Turnbull and two of his former associates, Toshia Withers and Bridgett Ekwensi. Withers and Ekwensi had been charged with racketeering, conspiracy to distribute cocaine and money laundering. Withers was arrested on August 12, and Ekwensi nine days later. Both had been released on bond, and both, like Turnbull, had entered agreements with the US Attorney’s Office allowing leniency in sentencing if they cooperated with authorities and gave truthful and helpful information that would lead to charges or convictions against others. Such agreements are a major tool in making drug cases.

The story that emerged from those interviews was complicated and tawdry.
Toshia Withers turned 30 on Sept. 29, 2003. She was black, of medium complexion, and had short, curly hair. She stood 5’8” tall, weighed 140 pounds, and had eight tattoos on various parts of her body.

Withers had become an exotic dancer when she was 20 or 21 – she couldn’t remember which – working first at a club called Mimi’s, later at Twiggy’s. She also had worked day jobs at Revco/CVS, Eckerd Pharmacy, Stein Mart, Big Lots and Dollar General. Her criminal record showed numerous traffic violations, several charges for driving without a license and a single case of shoplifting in 1992.

Withers said that she met James Hinson when she started working at Revco/CVS on East Market Street in September 1995. Hinson, who was married to his first wife, Brenda, at the time, provided off-duty security there. He was five years older than Withers.

Withers said she and Hinson talked a lot at work. Elton Turnbull later said that Withers told him that Hinson also spent a lot of time at the drugstore talking to a known drug dealer called “Swamp,” who frequently came to see him. Swamp was Rodney Jenkins, who operated a crackhouse. He later served as a finder for Turnbull, bringing potential dealers to him. Jenkins introduced Shawn Marshall to Turnbull, and Marshall became one of Turnbull’s biggest customers, buying six kilos of cocaine a week from him.

Withers had given birth to a son in 1995 before she met Hinson. She and Hinson started having lunch together that fall, she said. By the end of the year their relationship had grown close.
At first, Withers didn’t admit to being involved sexually with Hinson. “Just friends,” she said during her first interview on Feb. 18, 2003. “I mean, it was a good friendship. Him and I are good friends to this day.” (The friendship would last only one more day, because the following day Withers called Hinson and told him she had been talking to the police.)

Later, Withers acknowledged that she and Hinson had been intimate, and that their sexual relationship had spanned several years and both of Hinson’s marriages.
“Well, the sex part, like I say, we talked, we got to know each other, and the sex part, that came toward the end of ’95… We talked, we kissed, you know, here and there. But it really got more intense the end of ’95, more in ’96, and went ahead from there.”
Usually, she said, they had sex once or twice a week.

Asked if they ever had sex while Hinson was on duty and in uniform, Withers at first said, “No, no, no, no, and like I said, if Hinson and I do anything it’s off work. He doesn’t do anything because he’s a police and he respects his job. He likes his job, so he won’t do anything in that uniform. Trust me. He won’t do anything in that uniform.”

Later, however, she admitted that they did have sex while Hinson was on duty, in uniform, and that at times it occurred in his patrol car, either in parks, or parking lots.
“I think a time or two we met at Hester, maybe Barber Park. But, I mean, just basically anywhere, you know, [away] from a street.”

It was two or three months, she said, before they began getting motel rooms.
When Sanders confronted Withers about inconsistencies in her statements regarding sex with Hinson while he was on duty and in uniform, she insisted it was so.

“Well, yeah, I mean we’d meet at his house or whatever. He’d always be in uniform. Well, not always, but most of the time he’d be in uniform. I mean, it was like, ‘OK, I’m at work, I’m going to sneak away from work.’ I mean, whether he’d be on break or whatever, I know that he had on a uniform. I don’t know if he was working or not, but he had on a uniform.”
Later Hinson acknowledged to investigators that he had a sexual relationship with Withers but denied having sex with her while on duty or in his patrol car, an offense for which officers have been fired.

Probably sometime in 1996, Withers remembered, while at work at the drugstore, she mentioned that she’d like to buy a house. Hinson overheard her and told her that he had a house that he’d rent to her. It was at 3106 Fieldale Road, just off South Elm-Eugene south of I-40. His wife, Brenda, was living in it, he said, but he was planning to put her out. It wasn’t until sometime early in 1997 that Withers moved in. The house was a cheaply constructed, plain frame structure with an oak tree in the front yard. She recalled that Hinson charged her $575 a month.

Stress began to develop in the relationship between Withers and Hinson at about the same time that she moved into the house.
Withers learned that Hinson was planning to remarry, and according to Bridgett Ekwensi, she didn’t like it. Ekwensi said that Withers and Hinson were “crazy about each other,” and that Withers wanted to stop the wedding.
Some of Hinson’s friends in the Police Department decided to throw a bachelor party for him. Elton Turnbull first told investigators about it, but his information, he said, had come from Ekwensi.

Both Ekwensi and Withers later told officers about the party in detail in separate interviews. Their stories were largely in agreement except that Ekwensi remembered the party taking place at the Sheraton downtown, while Withers thought it was at a hotel off High Point Road – she couldn’t recall which. Both said it took place in two rooms. But they gave different versions of an incident that happened at the end of the evening.

Withers said that Hinson’s friend in the department, Bobby A. Edwards, had approached her and several other dancers at Twiggy’s and asked them to perform at the party. They would be paid $175 to $200 each.

(Two officers in the Greensboro Police Department are called Bobby Edwards. One is Robert E. Edwards, who is white. Bobby A. Edwards is black. He went through the Police Academy with David Wray and Randall Brady, and was caught up in the 1982 Police Department drug scandal after marijuana seeds were found in his car. A board of inquiry on which Wray sat found that the evidence was not sufficient for disciplinary action against Edwards. He later sued the city for $1.25 million claiming that he had been investigated only because of racism. He also was one of the black officers making claims of racial discrimination during the search for a new chief in 1998, after which city leaders turned their focus outside the department and hired Robert White.)

Ekwensi, Withers and two other dancers, Donna Johnson and Portia Hayes, agreed to perform at Hinson’s party, which was held at the end of January 1997. As Withers and Ekwensi told the story, the dancers arrived together. Edwards paid them in the bedroom. They began changing into their costumes and planning the order of their performances. Withers, a surprise for Hinson, would go last.

Hinson and his friends had been drinking before the dancers arrived, and both Withers and Ekwensi said that Hinson was drunk.
When time for the performances came, Hinson was placed in a chair in the center of the adjoining room, while his friends from the department gathered around to watch and whoop as the dancers emerged one after another and gyrated around the groom-to-be, removing their attire.

After Withers had finished her routine, the dancers went around the room performing for the attending officers individually.
“One thing led to another,” Withers remembered. “You spread, or whatever. I think it was Donna and me that stayed in the room where Hinson was.”

Ekwensi, who stood 5’7” and weighed 180 pounds, said that she and Portia Hayes went into the bedroom, where she did an act with an extra large dildo and allowed officers to manipulate it. As that was going on, Portia Hayes, who was on the bed beside her, was shooting ice cubes from her vagina, while fondling an officer that the dancers considered to be “goofy.” Those officers not actively engaged tossed money onto the bed.

Meanwhile, in the other room, Withers and Donna Johnson, both nude, were alternating in what they called “grinding” on Hinson as he sat in the chair with his penis out.
Ekwensi told investigators that at parties such as this, some dancers made extra money by doing what she called “private sessions,” which she defined as having sex. Hinson went into the bathroom for a private session with Withers, she said, and ended up sprawled on the floor, loud and obnoxious.

Later, she said, Withers went into the bathroom for a private session with Bobby Edwards, and that was when the trouble began. When Hinson realized what was going on, he began yelling and beating on the door. Withers opened the door, Ekwensi said, and Hinson snatched her out by the arm, yelling, “What the f--- are you doing?”

In Withers’ interview, she didn’t mention going into the bathroom with Edwards. She said that Hinson got upset when she told him she had to go.
“He was like, ‘You’re not leaving.’ He got mad because I was there, I was dancing, and I was like, ‘Well, you wanted me to come. Bobby asked me to come.’ I put on my clothes. I was either in the bathroom or the bedroom, and I was telling him that I was going, and he grabbed me. I was like, ‘Let me go.’ He was like, ‘Bitch, you’re not going anywhere. You want to act like a bitch I’m going to treat you like a bitch.’ He grabbed me, and I said, ‘Hinson, stop!’
She said they began to scuffle, and she called to Edwards for help. “He came and said, ‘Man, let it go. ’”

Later in the same interview, she said that Hinson grabbed her around the shoulders and neck but she could have removed his hands if necessary. “I was scared but he never put his hands on me,” she said. “I was like, ‘Bobby, come and get your boy.’”
Ekwensi offered a different view. According to her, Hinson said, “You want to act like a bitch I’m going to treat you like a bitch” when he snatched Withers out of the bathroom with Edwards. She said the confrontation in which Hinson grabbed Withers around the neck took place after Withers and Ekwensi had dressed and were attempting to leave.

He knocked clothing from Withers’ hands and pushed her up against the elevator, Ekwensi said. Edwards was present when that happened, but did nothing to stop it, she claimed. In her view, Edwards and the other officers were afraid of Hinson.

Edwards had earlier tried to get her to agree to a “private session” later in the evening, Ekwensi said, and he followed her and Withers to her car. Withers was upset. Ekwensi said that Edwards asked what she was going to do after she got Withers situated. She told him she had to be someplace.

Edwards came regularly to Twiggy’s looking for her, Ekwensi said, and she believed that he was stalking her. He would come by her apartment while on patrol and in uniform, and sometimes stop her car and offer to pay whatever she asked to have sex with him, she told investigators. But she considered him disgusting, she said, and was frightened by him.

Withers said that Hinson later told her that he and Edwards went looking for her after she and Ekwensi left. They stopped by a hip-hop club downtown that now is Rumba Latina and got the DJ to make an announcement saying, “If Toshia Withers is here, this is the Greensboro police. You need to come to the front door.”

Little more than three months after Hinson’s bachelor party, the Greensboro Police Department named him Officer of the Year. He was chosen by a panel of officers of various ranks.
Coming next week, Part 9: Drug dealing and the Miami connection.

===============================================================

Daaaayyymmn!!

Is any of this true? I think it's time 4 stripper investigation!

I'll c what I can dig up...