WES BUNCH
GATE CITY — The Scott
County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Tuesday that three officers have been
disciplined for violating department policy.
Scott County Sheriff John
Puckett said he suspended Sgt. Ted Fletcher, a shift supervisor, and patrol
officers John Gillenwater and Chris Kilgore without pay as a result of the
incident.
Fletcher was suspended for
30 days and had his rank pulled, while both Gillenwater and Kilgore were given
three-day suspensions.
“We gave them time off and
so forth for violating the sheriff’s office policy,” Puckett said. “They are
all three good officers and they made a mistake. They just need to get this
behind them, learn from their mistakes and become better police officers,
because they are all good police officers.”
Puckett said this was the
first disciplinary measure for any of the officers.
The suspensions reportedly
stemmed from a collision that occurred last week between two cruisers responding
to a call in the Weber City area. Fletcher was driving one cruiser, while the
other two officers were in the second.
“There were two vehicles
responding to a call and they did hit together,” Puckett said. “It did minor
damage, something like $200 or $300 worth of damage, and they violated our
policy because whenever a supervisor is involved in an accident they have to
have another supervisor come and do a report.”
Instead of following that
protocol, Puckett said the officer who was a passenger in one of the cruisers
wrote up the report on the accident. A separate supervisor besides Fletcher was
not called to the scene.
The original report also
contained several inaccuracies that were corrected before it was officially
submitted, Puckett said.
Puckett said the impact
occurred when the two cruisers were traveling side-by-side across the Holston
River bridge in Weber City. Puckett said one of the cruisers crossed over into
the other lane and sideswipped the second cruiser.
Puckett denied rumors that
the officers were racing each other to get to the call.
“There was no road rage, or
racing involved, or anything like that,” Puckett said.
Puckett also said the
officers were not misleading about the incident when questioned by their
superiors.
“None of the officers lied
to me,” Puckett said. “Whenever I talked to them they told me everything that
happened, the day it happened and all that. It’s being handled internally and I
think the punishment we gave fits what happened.”
