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He's been Police Officer of the Year, president of the black officer's chapter, had his picture in the paper enough times to fill a scrapbook, and he has sponsored everything from bodybuilding charity benefits to a halfway house for prostitutes.

Like the mythical Greek strongman he's nicknamed for, Lt. James "Hercules" Hinson has become larger than life - the city's most recognizable cop in uniform, a walking billboard for academy recruiters.

So of all people, the burly patrol veteran might have been the last officer the public would expect to be suspended, as he was Friday, a week after news that a so-called "secret police" squad was tailing him.

In a news conference Friday, Chief David Wray never mentioned Hinson's name as he spoke of an "ongoing" drug investigation and an internal police probe, later cryptically telling the News & Record: "You connect the dots." And even if Wray refused to name names, a lot of people were asking the obvious question.

Hinson?

"I can't believe it," said Brenda Cogdell, a homelessness prevention advocate who worked closely with Hinson on his latest idea, Operation Help. "He seemed so dedicated."

Echoed Dorothy Brown, whose Ole Asheboro neighborhood along MLK Drive was the crime-plagued section where Hinson first walked a beat after joining the force in 1991:

"When he was over here, he had the kids under control. They respected him. He seems to be a clean-cut young man."

Clearly, that image doesn't square with the view department brass has of Hinson. Though Wray's read-between-the-lines statement to the media Friday avoided naming Hinson, the lieutenant himself says he long knew that officers in the covert Special Intelligence Section sought to connect him to Elton Turnbull, a major cocaine dealer arrested here in 2001.

In 1999, Hinson and his wife sold Turnbull one of their rental properties. Although Hinson said investigators saw this as evidence of police collusion, he insists it was sheer coincidence.

"That one incident was how this whole thing started," Hinson said in an interview last week, before his suspension.

"I met (Turnbull) twice, and I didn't know he was a drug dealer. I thought he had a landscaping business."

According to Drug Enforcement Agency affidavits, a joint task force with city police and the State Bureau of Investigation in October 2001 closed in on a $10 million cocaine ring between Greensboro and Venezuela. The central figure was Turnbull, now 34, cousin to an FBI top 10 fugitive, Jimmy Springette.

Turnbull owned an airplane he used for drug running, federal records show, and he used three businesses as fronts: Top Dawg Landscaping; Top Dawg Racing, a Florida horse stable; and T.D. Management, the property rental company to which Hinson sold the house.

Turnbull was sentenced to 29 years in the penitentiary, and a host of lesser co-conspirators, mostly young women, are serving sentences for convictions on drug dealing, running cash and money laundering.

Wray, who had refused to take questions Friday or elaborate, said the joint investigation had created the need for an "internal" probe.

"This information was highly sensitive and was of such significance," Wray told reporters, "that it had to be investigated in order to ensure the integrity of the department."

To have acted on information turned up in that probe would have compromised the case, said Wray, who later declined to explain why it was now safe to confirm the probe existed.

"There's more to this than I can tell you," Wray said in a phone interview Saturday. "You connect the dots."

What accidentally forced the internal investigation into public view was when Hinson, while on duty in his city-issued Crown Victoria, discovered a "bird-dog" tracking device under the rear bumper.

An embarrassed Wray confirmed the device had been placed there by a retired detective hired back on contract, and at first he said Hinson was being watched because of complaints that the lieutenant was doing off-duty work while on the clock.

But as early as January, an attorney for Hinson had complained that the lieutenant had been under investigation "for a substantial period of time " without being told why.

And in a grievance filed in November, Hinson claimed that he was being "singled out" because he is black, and because he'd been friends with Wray's predecessor, Robert White.

As a result, Hinson alleged, he was being cut out of the off-duty work many officers use to supplement their pay - security work, for instance, at stores, the Greensboro Coliseum or special events downtown.

Moreover, his lawyer alleged that Hinson "was being secretly investigated by the Special Intelligence division, which is also commonly referred to as 'the secret police.' "

Attorney Dow Spaulding wrote in the grievance that Hinson had apparently been followed "on numerous occasions" and that his "integrity and character" were being questioned.

At the same time, Hinson wrote a memo to City Manager Ed Kitchen saying that he had examined his Internal Affairs file and had found no record of an investigation by "the secret police" or any other part of the department.

Hinson, in an interview last week, questioned why he was still being tailed as recently as June 3, the night he was on duty and confronted retired detective Randy Gerringer, who had followed Hinson to The Grande Theatre.

"If you can't get anything on me in a year and a half, what does that tell you?" Hinson said in an interview. "Either I'm not doing anything (illegal), or I'm real good (at eluding investigators ). Let me tell you. I ain't that good."

Hinson, who is raising two teenage children by his first marriage, said investigators appeared suspicious that he could afford to live near Lake Jeannette and drive a luxury car on his $64,000 police salary.

However, he points out, he has a cleaning business on the side, works off-duty security at a supermarket two nights per week and makes additional income from rental property.

"A dirty cop I am not," he insisted. "I'm furious. I've worked hard to establish my reputation."

No question that Hinson's police career is a study in ambition. He rose quickly through the ranks - in one case, getting promoted to corporal one October and to sergeant two months later - and his resume of community projects is exhausting just to read.

He has produced anti-crime videos for public access TV and organized a youth basketball tournament and the Asheboro Square Blast street festival. He's been honored by TV stations and the Jaycees, and he put together golf benefits, neighborhood "night outs" and vigils such as "The Gathering" in memory of homicide victims, programs to combat crime against the elderly, and a cleaning-up of crime-ridden Douglas Park.

As recently as last month, at a fund-raiser he organized at the Malachi House residential program for men, Hinson appeared on the same stage as District Attorney Stuart Albright and Wray.

To the public, at least, there had been no hint of the trouble brewing behind the scenes. But to Hinson's second wife, Beverly, who has been separated from the lieutenant since late last year, the internal investigation hung over Hinson like a cloud.

"They have had it out for James for a long time," she said last week. "He lives and breathes this job. But going through what this department has put him through in the past two years - a person can only take so much."

Some fear that the most serious by product of the Hinson story will be a growing polarization of the 550-officer department.

Last week, after the black officers association , of which Hinson is president , met to discuss the matter, the department wide Greensboro Police Officers Association began backing away from Hinson, who as a supervisor is not a member of the quasi-union.

Nevertheless, union lawyer William Hill had acknowledged an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion among the ranks after the secret probe of Hinson lurched into public view.

"The situation over there is terrible," said Hill, whose organization has since conducted a morale survey of the ranks. "Officers are fearful of mentioning anything about any complaint for fear of reprisal. Numerous officers have indicated that the standard response is, 'If you don't like it, leave.' That's troubling."

It was difficult to verify Hill's assessment: Last week in a departmental review, Wray told his commanders that henceforth no one in the agency was permitted to speak to the media about Hinson or Special Intelligence, except for Wray's spokesman.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com