N.C. Crime Control Secretary Bryan Beatty said today that he will leave the department for a new position that Gov. Mike Easley will soon announce, reports Dan Kane.

Beatty has been in charge of the department — which includes the State Highway Patrol, Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement and the Emergency Management Division — since Easley took office in 2001. Governor-elect Beverly Perdue has not announced who will succeed Beatty.

"I am very proud of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, and of the work we did over the past eight years," Beatty said. "I think whoever takes over the department will be inheriting one of the best agencies in the country."

Beatty declined to identify his new position, which he said he had been discussing with the governor for the past several months. Beatty has been rumored to be in line for an opening on the N.C. Utilities Commission or a state Superior Court seat.

The state Industrial Commission is being asked to take up the case of a Cumberland County man seeking compensation after being severely beaten by a state trooper 23 years ago.

The N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety has appealed a decision by Wanda Taylor, a deputy Industrial Commissioner, that Richard Wayne Barfield be entitled to a hearing on damages of up to $100,000. The department includes the State Highway Patrol, Dan Kane reports.

Barfield, 50, suffered major head injuries from the beating by Trooper Geary Blackwood, 56, outside a convenience store in Fayetteville in 1985. Surgeons had to remove a piece of his skull and patch his head together with cranial plaster and a plate.

Blackwood said he did nothing wrong and was defending himself, but the patrol let him go shortly after the arrest and said he had acted outside of the scope of his authority.

The state used that argument to deny having to pay Barfield compensation, but Taylor found that a state law passed three years ago no longer allows the patrol to assert that defense.

The Humane Society of the United States supports N.C. Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty suspension of the N.C. Highway Patrol's canine program until a review determines if dogs were regularly mistreated.

"Secretary Beatty has done the right thing by suspending North Carolina's K9 program while a full review is pending," said Ann Church, HSUS regional director for the Eastern mountain states, in a news release. "He deserves great credit for making a politically difficult decision to step in before a dog is killed. Taxpayers deserve greater transparency of K9 training protocols, and the dogs who serve the people of North Carolina deserve to be treated humanely."

Beatty ordered the suspension after canine handlers and trainers testified in the personnel hearing of fired Sgt. Charles L. Jones that police dogs had been subjected to rough obedience techniques such as suspending them by their leashes, twirling them until they are disoriented and shocking them, Dan Kane reports.

Jones, who is trying to get his job back, was shown on a cellphone video kicking his police dog Ricoh after suspending him from a loading dock rail. Ricoh was not seriously hurt and has been retired from the force.

The Humane Society said it strongly supports canine law enforcement work and believes that the vast majority of canine officers in the nation treat their assigned animals with love and respect. The Humane Society also said there is a need for humane training protocols for canine units across the nation.

The N.C. Troopers Association is slamming an independent consultant's review of the state Highway Patrol.

The association released a statement today that called the report "incomplete, biased, misleading, and inaccurate in relevant parts." It also said the report is a "severe disservice" to troopers, the patrol and taxpayers, Dan Kane reports.

The association is the second group to criticize the review. John Midgette, the N.C. Police Benevolent Association's executive director, also delivered a harsh critique after the review was released on Wednesday.

Kroll of New York City was hired to perform a review of the patrol's hiring, training and supervision practices. Gov. Mike Easley called for the review last fall after several high profile cases of trooper misconduct.

He and N.C. Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty have praised its findings.

More after the jump.

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The N.C. Highway Patrol has pulled its 10 police dogs off duty indefinitely after several troopers testified in a personnel hearing this week to several rough training methods that involved shocking, kicking and suspending the dogs.

Patrol spokesman Lt. Everett Clendenin said that Bryan Beatty, the N.C. Crime Control and Public Safety secretary who oversees the patrol, ordered the suspension so that a review can be conducted of training techniques, Dan Kane reports.

"We can't run the risk of one of our dogs being injured or somebody in the public being injured because of the training," Clendenin said. "We're not sure what's taking place, so that's what we are going to do."

Over the course of three days of hearings into the firing of Sgt. Charles Jones, who is trying to win his job back, troopers in the canine program have said that dogs have been shocked with a stun gun, kicked, and suspended until they are nearly unconscious.

They also have acknowledged throwing plastic bottles filled with stones at the dogs and twirling them around in a technique known as "helicoptering," sometimes releasing them in midair.

More after the jump.

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