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Web posted January 23, 1997

Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

The ordeal of Columbia County Deputy Calvin Parker is over. After seven months on paid suspension, next week he goes back to the job he loves.

Like falsely accused ``Olympic bomber'' Richard Jewell, the man he was sometimes compared to, Parker has been exonerated after an exhaustive FBI investigation.

Just as important, he has also been cleared by his own department and the local district attorney. It's obvious now that robber/kidnapper Christopher Jeburk was vengefully rattling the authorities' chains when he claimed Parker was ``the inside man'' in his two highly publicized escapes.

Though the suspension was justified until the charge was checked out, Sheriff Clay Whittle drew some fire for saying with more certainty than the evidence warranted that a ``dirty cop'' contaminated his department.

Later the sheriff qualified his remark, but not until after critics lambasted him for invoking the ``dirty cop'' issue to duck his osn share of responsibility in the escapes.

In fairness to Whittle, though, he never did name Parker as the suspended deputy. Parker himself volunteered the information when asked by reporters. In this respect, the Parker case is unlike Jewell's. FBI sources leaked to the media that security guard Jewell was a bombing suspect.

Since Jeburk's two escapes - the first with another prisoner and the other by himself - there has been yet another temporary flight of two inmates. No ``dirty cop,'' real or imagined, had anything to do with it.

With Parker cleared, the buck stops at the sheriff's desk. The onus is now totally on Whittle to repair the prison's design flaws and tighten the lax security practices which brought so much embarrassment to his department. He can ill-afford any more escapes.