Tuesday, July 29, 2014

IMPD Officer's Drunk Driving Arrest Raises Questions

The Indianapolis Star's Jill Disis has a story discussing newly-filed court documents filed in the arrest of Officer Kevin Brown early Monday morning for operating a vehicle while intoxicated, his second such arrest in less than a year. Although her story doesn't seem to pose questions about the timing of his arrest and the administering of a blood-alcohol test, the recitation of the facts in her story certainly give rise to suspicions that his fellow IMPD officers may have taken steps aimed at protecting him from registering over the legal limit following his arrest, which should have been made by Morgan Co. authorities where he was driving at the time of his arrest but instead was made by IMPD.

Disis indicates that the court documents say that Officer Brown had gone out for drinks Sunday night after working all day at the Brickyard 400. He reportedly consumed six beers, including four, 20 oz. glasses of Blue Moon at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Plainfield. Brown and his girlfriend were dropped off at his home in Camby by a friend. Brown later decides to drive his police cruiser to a White Castle on Ind. 67 near the Marion, Hendricks and Morgan Co. lines around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. because he was hungry. This is where it gets confusing. At around 4:00 a.m., one to three hours after he left his home in Camby, someone places a 911 call to complain that a plain-clothes IMPD officer who appeared to be drunk was witnessed using his loud speaker and lights while going through the drive-thru at White Castle. Apparently, Brown was messing with some friends he recognized in a car in front of him. Before he left the White Castle, an occupant in the car in front of him got in Brown's police cruiser, and Brown drove the person to their home in Mooresville, which is in Morgan County.

An IMPD officer who responded to the 911 call figured out that the officer involved was Brown. Surely the officer knew about Brown's arrest for drunk driving last August. That officer told Brown to pull his car over. At that time, Brown was in Morgan County on Ind. 39. The officer arrested Brown around 5:00 a.m. and took him to IMPD's Southeast roll call site at 1150 S. Shelby Street; however, a blood-alcohol test was not administered on Brown until 6:41 a.m., almost two hours following his arrest and nearly three hours after the 911 call had been placed. Brown tested just over the legal limit at 0.09. IMPD spokesman Kendale Adams told Disis that "it is standard practice to take someone suspected of drunken driving to a place that has instruments for recording results taken from certified chemical tests." "Those tests, which give investigators evidence that can be submitted in court, are only available in certain locations, Adams said." But why was Brown's arrest handled by IMPD instead of Morgan Co. authorities since he was apprehended in Morgan Co.? And why did so much time pass before the BAC test was administered? When he tested over the legal limit, IMPD took Brown back to Morgan Co. where he was booked into the jail. The police report sounds kind of fishy. What do you think?

According to IMPD policy, an officer is subject to discipline whenever a blood-alcohol level of 0.02 or higher is registered at the time of his arrest. That discipline can go all the way up to firing. It's unclear what discipline Brown received following his drunk driving arrest last year, although he was reportedly placed on administrative leave immediately following his arrest.

UPDATE: Officer Brown has resigned according to WTHR.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

this cop needs to be on a triple does of antibuse every day

Anonymous said...

and by the size of him and his dietary choices, Lipitor too! Thanks MCSD for another fine example of your contribution to IMPD during the merger. What a POS...signed, Ashamed to Wear the Same Badge.

C. Roger Csee said...

Just what I thought (anon 10:18).
Gary, when you have a few minutes to spare, perhaps you can research just how many IMPD officers who have been arrested in the last 7 years came from MCSD during the "con"solidation. You have the resources to do that.
I personally know that the majority of them did.

Anonymous said...

Getting a breathalyzer done in an hour and 40 minutes is normal. They have up to 3 hours to do it. The police arrested one of their own, he blew over the limit and you're still complaining. File under yellow journalism.