Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries plans to investigate the conduct of some of his officers and how it relates to an early-morning drunken-driving arrest in Huntington County. The wife of Allen County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Stone was arrested early Monday on charges of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and appeared in Huntington Superior Court later in the morning. While Huntington County sheriff’s deputy David McVoy was taking Stone’s wife into custody, Stone repeatedly asked him to “handle (it) differently,” the police report said.
And while Huntington County jail officers were preparing paperwork for a blood test to determine her level of intoxication, several Allen County deputies called the jail. Some of the calls were “not very friendly,” according to a police report, which does not identify the officers that called.
Stone described his statements as the “excited utterances” of a concerned husband as he watched his wife being handcuffed and put in the back of a police car.
Monday evening, Fries said he will conduct an internal investigation into the officers’ behavior.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Huntington Superior Court, when Stone’s wife was pulled over on U.S. 24 in Roanoke, she had crossed the centerline three or four times. She failed a field sobriety test administered by McVoy and refused to take a portable breathalyzer test.
“She stated that ‘she did not trust them and did not trust cops as she had been married to one for 10 years,” according to the report.
The report also indicates that Stone’s wife said she was driving because her husband was in no condition to drive.
Stone remained in the passenger seat of the silver Mercedes, but when McVoy put the handcuffs on his wife, Stone asked whether the officer couldn’t handle it differently,” the police report said.
“I told him that I was handling this the same way I would handle anyone else in this situation,” McVoy wrote in his report. “He asked me who my chief was. I said that my sheriff’s name was Kent Farthing. He asked me to call Sheriff Farthing. I advised him that I would not.”
Stone then asked McVoy whether his chief was Terry Stoffel, chief of the Huntington Police Department.
“(Stone) told me that they had been roommates in the academy and that maybe I should call him. I said that I would not,” McVoy wrote.
Later Monday, Stone said he had made calls to the jail – from the telephone in the lobby – to check to see whether his wife had returned from the hospital, where she had been taken for a blood test.
Stone said he does not believe other Allen County officers made phone calls or were involved.
“The only officer that talked to any other officer was me,” he said.
Fries expressed gratitude to McVoy for the way he handled the situation.
“I appreciate the officer doing his job,” Fries said. “He did what he was supposed to do.”
But Fries said Stone should not have gotten involved with his wife’s arrest.
“That’s not what I expect from our employees,” Fries said. “We should be held to a higher standard as far as the police are concerned.”
Poster Comment:
ROTFLMFAO!
Those skinhead nazis sure squeal when the shoe's on the other foot.
Why no arrest for public intox? Why no arrests for interfering with a law enforcement officer?