CHARLSESTON, W.Va. -- Shawn Hutchinson just wants to get through college and get out of West Virginia.

And he needs a job to help pay his way and avoid the debt that hounds so many college kids.

So he signed up as a police officer in Chesapeake, even though his last job as a police officer ended shortly after he and Matthew Leavitt pulled over Twan and Lauren Reynolds at a 7-Eleven in Montgomery.

Leavitt now sits in a federal prison after pleading guilty to two civil-rights violations for beating Twan Reynolds and illegally charging Lauren Reynolds with driving under the influence. Leavitt, Hutchinson and Lauren Reynolds are white. Twan Reynolds is black.

Hutchinson was never charged with a crime in the incident, but his life certainly changed after that night.

"It's been really hard," he said last week. "If I get out of a car people harass me. Fifty yards down the street they're screaming at me. It's made it really hard to go to school."

And now there's been another incident - the first, he says, where he has arrested a black person since Twan Reynolds. He says believes the actions he took in the Reynolds case and the most recent incident were proper.

"It's been miserable trying to go to school at the same time and to have to be in class," he said. "All these articles makes it harder. My professors are asking me what's going on. Life has been rough."

Assurance

Hutchinson said he's not racist. He said he grew up in Montgomery and has black friends there. Now he just wants to finish college at West Virginia Tech and get into law school so he can leave West Virginia.

He said after the Reynolds incident he got a job as a police officer in Glasgow. He said he was there two weeks when he went to his regular barber in Montgomery. When he walked outside, there were more than 10 black men waiting for him, ready to fight him. He says he had arrested most of them.

"So they start coming at me and I show them my duty weapon. I don't pull it out, nothing illegal," he said.

Hutchinson believes that by showing them he was armed, he kept himself from getting beaten.

"I went back to the chief in Glasgow and told him, and they ended up firing me over that issue," Hutchinson said. "So from then on, I was unemployed until Jack Ice hired me," he said.

Ice, the Chesapeake police chief, said he hired Hutchinson in April after talking to lawyers on all sides of the Reynolds case.

Mike Clifford, the former Kanawha County prosecutor who represented Twan and Lauren Reynolds, recommended Hutchinson for the Chesapeake job, Clifford told Hutchinson during Hutchinson's deposition in the Reynolds case. That deposition was taken later on the day that his partner, Leavitt, was sentenced for civil-rights violations.

"All of the attorneys involved in this thing in Montgomery assured me he was not going to be charged with anything criminally and that they would recommend him for an officer," Ice said. "I judged him on his interview here and I took it for gospel what all the attorneys involved said. ... I contacted everyone and nobody had any problems."

'You've both obviously been fighting'

On Jan. 24, Hutchinson and another Chesapeake officer, Patrolman A.J. Roop, arrested Jessica Barnette.

Barnette, 24, said a white teenager came into an apartment where she was visiting a friend and punched her. She said the teenager ripped off her shirt in the ensuing fight. A juvenile petition was later filed on the teen in the attack.

Hutchinson and Ice say multiple witnesses gave different stories.

Barnette and two witnesses that were with her said the 17-year-old started the fight. The 17-year-old and his parents say Barnette started the fight, police say.

On a recording of the incident provided by Hutchinson to the Sunday Gazette-Mail, he can be heard explaining to both sides that Barnette would be arrested and that a juvenile petition would be filed on the 17-year-old.

"Here's the thing, she's got some marks on her, too, and you got some marks on you," Hutchinson said to the 17-year-old. "You've both obviously been fighting. I'm going to charge you both with battery."

Later he explains the situation to Barnette.

"Jessica, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told him. I don't like to play these games. You both got marks. Somebody wants to fight you ... run the other way and call the police," he said on the audio file.

And he needs a job to help pay his way and avoid the debt that hounds so many college kids.

So he signed up as a police officer in Chesapeake, even though his last job as a police officer ended shortly after he and Matthew Leavitt pulled over Twan and Lauren Reynolds at a 7-Eleven in Montgomery.

Leavitt now sits in a federal prison after pleading guilty to two civil-rights violations for beating Twan Reynolds and illegally charging Lauren Reynolds with driving under the influence. Leavitt, Hutchinson and Lauren Reynolds are white. Twan Reynolds is black.

Hutchinson was never charged with a crime in the incident, but his life certainly changed after that night.

"It's been really hard," he said last week. "If I get out of a car people harass me. Fifty yards down the street they're screaming at me. It's made it really hard to go to school."

And now there's been another incident - the first, he says, where he has arrested a black person since Twan Reynolds. He says believes the actions he took in the Reynolds case and the most recent incident were proper.

"It's been miserable trying to go to school at the same time and to have to be in class," he said. "All these articles makes it harder. My professors are asking me what's going on. Life has been rough."

Assurance

Hutchinson said he's not racist. He said he grew up in Montgomery and has black friends there. Now he just wants to finish college at West Virginia Tech and get into law school so he can leave West Virginia.

He said after the Reynolds incident he got a job as a police officer in Glasgow. He said he was there two weeks when he went to his regular barber in Montgomery. When he walked outside, there were more than 10 black men waiting for him, ready to fight him. He says he had arrested most of them.

"So they start coming at me and I show them my duty weapon. I don't pull it out, nothing illegal," he said.

Hutchinson believes that by showing them he was armed, he kept himself from getting beaten.

"I went back to the chief in Glasgow and told him, and they ended up firing me over that issue," Hutchinson said. "So from then on, I was unemployed until Jack Ice hired me," he said.

Ice, the Chesapeake police chief, said he hired Hutchinson in April after talking to lawyers on all sides of the Reynolds case.

Mike Clifford, the former Kanawha County prosecutor who represented Twan and Lauren Reynolds, recommended Hutchinson for the Chesapeake job, Clifford told Hutchinson during Hutchinson's deposition in the Reynolds case. That deposition was taken later on the day that his partner, Leavitt, was sentenced for civil-rights violations.

"All of the attorneys involved in this thing in Montgomery assured me he was not going to be charged with anything criminally and that they would recommend him for an officer," Ice said. "I judged him on his interview here and I took it for gospel what all the attorneys involved said. ... I contacted everyone and nobody had any problems."

'You've both obviously been fighting'

On Jan. 24, Hutchinson and another Chesapeake officer, Patrolman A.J. Roop, arrested Jessica Barnette.

Barnette, 24, said a white teenager came into an apartment where she was visiting a friend and punched her. She said the teenager ripped off her shirt in the ensuing fight. A juvenile petition was later filed on the teen in the attack.

Hutchinson and Ice say multiple witnesses gave different stories.

Barnette and two witnesses that were with her said the 17-year-old started the fight. The 17-year-old and his parents say Barnette started the fight, police say.

On a recording of the incident provided by Hutchinson to the Sunday Gazette-Mail, he can be heard explaining to both sides that Barnette would be arrested and that a juvenile petition would be filed on the 17-year-old.

"Here's the thing, she's got some marks on her, too, and you got some marks on you," Hutchinson said to the 17-year-old. "You've both obviously been fighting. I'm going to charge you both with battery."

Later he explains the situation to Barnette.

"Jessica, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told him. I don't like to play these games. You both got marks. Somebody wants to fight you ... run the other way and call the police," he said on the audio file.

Lee Berry, the landlord of the apartment building where the fight happened, said she saw Barnette start the fight.

"I heard yelling out in the hall and walked out the front door," Berry said. "She started screaming at [the 17-year-old], yelling at him. She stripped off her coat and shirt and had on a white wife-beater under that. ... She hauled off and laid into him and he laid back into her."

Barnette said the 17-year-old ripped off her shirt.

Berry also said Brenda Griggs, Barnette's friend, was evicted from her apartment before the fight occurred. She has to be out by Feb. 15.

Hutchinson had his recorder running when he told Barnette to keep quiet while she was talking to Roop. On the audio file, Barnette can be heard arguing back and forth with Hutchinson about her previous claims against the 17-year-old.

"If you've got something bad to say about me or him, or you got problems with the way we do things at this department, you don't think anything is getting done, like I said you're more than welcome to file a complaint," Hutchinson said. "Until that time comes that you file a complaint or get out of my office, keep your mouth shut because I don't want to hear it. ... [Roop] is trying to do work, so leave him alone."

Barnette was taken from South Central Regional Jail to CAMC General Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a concussion. Hutchinson says she never mentioned that she was sick while in his presence. She does not mention being sick on the hourlong audio file.

'I want a good name'

Hutchinson says he believes he and Leavitt's actions were proper the night they arrested Twan and Lauren Reynolds in Montgomery.

"It's my strong opinion we didn't do anything wrong," he said. "The mayor [Jim Higgins] didn't stand behind me or Leavitt. Whenever he fired me the next day, that was a sign of weakness. It told everyone, 'My boys did do it.'

"He brought me in the next day after the incident. ... He fired me without asking a word about what happened."

Hutchinson admits that Leavitt had a drinking problem in his past, but says he was a good officer while Hutchinson worked with him.

"There was one time he got in trouble. He scraped cocaine from a drug dealer's nose. He used the bullet from his gun," Hutchinson said. "That was in his personnel file. He was punished for it."

Leavitt was an aggressive officer, but a good officer, Hutchinson said. He believes Leavitt got in trouble because so many drug dealers were angry with him.

"Every shift, he was messing with these drug dealers' income," Hutchinson said. "They're going to try to get the officer fired to keep that income coming in, to keep getting the fix. Drug addicts, when they don't have dope, they get angry."

Hutchinson says he talked to Leavitt just before he went to prison.

"Matt is definitely not a racist," Hutchinson said. "Matt was an aggressive police officer."

Hutchinson said he believes Twan and Lauren Reynolds believe they were in the right that night, but he still believes he and Leavitt made a lawful arrest.

"It's a shame they are getting away with $500,000 that they don't deserve," he said. "The actions taken were proper. I'll stand by that as long as I live."

Hutchinson said he and Leavitt didn't have time to do anything to the Reynoldses when they got back to the police station that night because medics followed them from the 7-Eleven to the police station.

In depositions by Fayette County EMS workers Brandi Jarrett and Nicole Williams, both say they stopped at the 7-Eleven and then followed the police officers to the station and treated Twan Reynolds' eye, which was sprayed with Mace.

Hutchinson said he's only 22 and wants to be successful in life.

"This is really bringing me down," he said. "I want a good name.

He says he's tried to stress to new officers, such as Roop, that they need to make sure they're careful.

"You want to be a good police officer out there. Your No. 1 priority should be to protect and serve," he said. "It's a shame, but your No. 1 priority is to cover your own butt or you'll end up in the same situation I'm in."

Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.