Senators advance Haley's choice to lead police agency

COLUMBIA - South Carolina legislators on Wednesday recommended that the Senate confirm 35-year law enforcement veteran Mark Keel as chief of the state's police agency.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously agreed with Gov. Nikki Haley's pick to lead the State Law Enforcement Division, and two senators even argued about who would get to make the motion to vote yes. The full Senate will likely vote next week.

For Keel, currently the head of the Department of Public Safety, getting the job would fulfill a decades-long goal.

"I've done just about every job there is at SLED," he told senators. "All the experience I've had in my life has led up to where I am today."

SLED is tasked with investigating crimes when asked to do so by the governor or attorney general, including in public corruption cases, and assisting local law enforcement agencies.

Keel, 53, said it's about providing local agencies the officers, equipment and expertise they lack and can't afford, so the level of public safety doesn't rest on a community's size. For Keel, a Barnwell native who joined the local volunteer fire department at age 16, the mission is personal.

His career began in rural Barnwell, Orangeburg and Bamberg counties, before he joined SLED in 1979.

He worked his way up through the ranks and became chief of staff in 2001, then interim chief when former chief Robert Stewart retired in 2007, after two decades at the agency's helm.

Keel noted he told Stewart in 1992, as he asked for his blessing to attend law school, that someday he wanted his job. At the time, he was a supervisor for SLED's intelligence unit. The 1979 Georgia Southern graduate received his law degree from the University of South Carolina Law School in 1995.

But when Stewart retired, then-Gov. Mark Sanford nominated former U.S. Attorney Reggie Lloyd, seeing an opportunity to appoint a minority. Lloyd announced earlier this year that he would leave the post July 1.

Sanford put Keel in charge of the Department of Public Safety in 2008 as state and federal investigations rocked the agency amid questions about discipline for troopers caught mistreating suspects in incidents captured on dashboard video.

The prospect of returning to SLED is emotional for Keel.

"I never dreamed I'd be doing anything else. I had no desire to go anywhere," Keel said after the committee meeting. When he wasn't appointed to replace Stewart, he said, "I'd given up on it. I was at peace with it. I never anticipated I'd be back."

Stewart called Keel a "lawman's lawman."

"He has the respect of the whole law enforcement community. He won't have to establish relationships," he said, noting it was a "proud" day for him. "We've been shot at together. He's been there, and law enforcement knows and trusts him."

By law, the agency's chief also serves as director of homeland security operations in South Carolina. The position currently pays $145,000 a year, which would mean a $2,000 raise.

Keel would fulfill the rest of Lloyd's term, which expires Jan. 31. But Keel made it clear he intends to stay on for future terms.

Keel said he's given Haley his opinion on who should replace him at the public safety agency.

His unfinished goals at that agency include consolidating its three recruiting and training units. The agency encompasses highway patrol, protective services and transport police.

Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, said he initially wanted Keel to stay at the helm of that agency, but then realized how badly Keel wanted to be at SLED.

"We had a lot of problems in the highway department" before Keel, Ford said. "If I like him, y'all have got to like him."