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GREENSBORO - Former police Chief David Wray's attorney is disputing claims by city officials that he resigned voluntarily early last year, saying the city left the embattled former department head with no other choice.

Greensboro lawyer Kenneth Keller said he believes that Wray had no other choice than resignation if he wanted to keep his right to speak out against the city administration's interpretation of the events that got him in trouble.

"David was put in an untenable position," said Keller, who represents Wray on employment matters, and advised Wray to resign. "He was put in a position where his credibility was completely undermined."

City Manager Mitchell Johnson denied Thursday that he or other city administrators forced Wray out, but said he was limited by personnel law in how fully he could answer Keller's allegations without authorization from the City Council.

But he did say that Wray's decision to resign came as a surprise to him and was not his goal in meeting with him and putting him on administrative leave early last year. Johnson said he instead wanted Wray and top commanders to answer questions about what they knew about the allegations of impropriety on the part of the now-disbanded Special Intelligence unit.

The council has scheduled a meeting this morning to discuss how much additional information it can release about Wray's departure and the investigation that triggered it.

Wray resigned in January 2006 after a highly critical report by an outside consultant focused on the department's Special Intelligence unit. The consultant, Risk Management Associates of Raleigh, said the unit went to extreme measures in investigating several black officers for alleged corruption that proved unfounded in repeated investigations.

Two suspended Greensboro officers were indicted Monday on felony charges stemming from those allegations.

The report also concluded that Wray had not been truthful in his public statements about that issue or in statements to other city officials.

In addition, the report unearthed a number of disciplinary cases in which white officers were treated less harshly than black officers for similar types of misconduct.

Keller said that Johnson's decision to lock Wray out of the chief's office while, technically, letting him retain the chief's title was "bizarre."

To get full early-retirement benefits, Keller said, city officials wanted Wray to sign "an admission of fault ... in connection with the racial allegations." "Any offers made to him were contingent on what appeared to me to be a gag order," said Keller, who represented Wray in those discussions with city officials.

Wray refused and forfeited early retirement, health, longevity and other benefits, Keller said.

Johnson maintained that given the circumstances of the ongoing investigation at the time, changing the locks on Wray's office and denying computer access was not unusual.

The city manager said the he could not discuss the specifics of what Wray was asked to sign. But he did not want a statement that made it appear, "I (the manager) just decided he had to go."

The goal also was a statement that would allow the community to put an end to the controversy about racial disparities in the police department and begin to move forward, Johnson said.

Keller disagreed: "The city management team had been panicked by having the race card played, they were going to do whatever they could and David was going to be the one who took the hit."

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com

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