Why the system needs to be changed

It should be clear that we shouldn't have a trooper patrolling our highways who is so incapable of controlling his emotions that he launches into a screaming tirade, complete with death treats and a racial slur, even when he and a fellow officer have already searched the suspects and have them in plain sight.

It should be clear that we shouldn't have a trooper on our highways who has such callous disregard for our citizens as to have a woman's car towed, leaving her stranded on a rural highway, even though it is clear she had committed no crime.

Yet despite Gov. Mark Sanford's decision to force out Highway Patrol Commander Russell Roark and Public Safety Director Jim Schweitzer for failing to adequately punish them, both troopers still are on the job, more than three years after the first, more serious, breach of professionalism.

And there's nothing Mr. Sanford or any other elected official can do about it.

That's because lawmakers deliberately put the Highway Patrol and its parent agency off-limits. ...

Perhaps both the colonel and the director would still have their jobs today if our system were different.

Unfortunately, we'll never know, because the system that lawmakers put in place to protect the Highway Patrol from political interference (a worthy goal) also protects it from political accountability. The latest turn of events offers yet more evidence of why that should change.

The (Columbia) State