news-record.com

GREENSBORO - A top city police official was suspended Monday as the internal administrative investigation into the recent department scandal continues to wind down.

Assistant Chief Annie Stevenson is the highest-ranking officer to date, and the second officer in the past week, to be suspended by interim Chief Tim Bellamy.

Bellamy declined to comment on the move, or how long the suspension is to be in effect. Stevenson could not be reached for comment Monday evening.

Though Bellamy offered no explanation for the suspension, Stevenson had been named last year in a report by city attorneys and an independent consultant that detailed irregularities in the way officers were internally investigated under former Chief David Wray.

According to the report, in 2003, when Stevenson was a captain, she rewrote an investigation on a corporal who was initially found to have been untruthful to her supervisor. The supervisor had refused to change his findings at the urging of former Deputy Chief Randall Brady.

A different internal report was found in the corporal's file. It was in line with what Brady is alleged to have wanted the first report to conclude.

According to the city report, Stevenson said she was ordered by Brady to make the changes. The corporal in question was married to a "close friend" of Wray, who resigned from the department in January.

Stevenson joined the department in 1979. Wray promoted her from captain to assistant chief in 2004, making her the highest-ranking African American woman in Greensboro police history.

Contact Eric J.S. Townsend at 373-7008 or etownsend@news-record.com