Jeff Wiehe
An Allen County sheriff’s
officer arrested in the aftermath of a domestic dispute this month has been
suspended for five days without pay.
Steven M. Perry, 42, is
currently serving his suspension, according to the sheriff’s department.
He was arrested in Michigan on
a misdemeanor charge of non-aggravated assault but has since entered a pretrial
diversion program, and the charge against him has been dropped.
Police took Perry into custody
Feb. 2 at a Quality Inn in Emmett Township in Battle Creek, about 100 miles
north of Fort Wayne.
Officers with the Emmett
Township Police Department were called there when someone saw a man push a
woman to the ground.
When police arrived, they
pieced together the following story as detailed in a police report: Perry and
the woman had been drinking at a nearby casino before moving to the lounge at
the Quality Inn.
At some point, Perry looked at
the woman’s cellphone and saw something he did not like. Perry called the woman
a derogatory name when she grabbed her purse and phone from him.
As the woman began leaving –
she said she walked away; Perry said she ran – Perry followed her.
A witness and the woman said
Perry pushed her against a wall and then to the ground, according to the police
report.
Perry claimed he chased her to
talk to her and fell into her, admitting he was drunk, according to the report.
That morning, Perry was booked
into the Calhoun County Jail and released shortly thereafter.
Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries
said his Internal Affairs division conducted an investigation and, following
Perry’s court case being sorted out, decided to suspend him.
The suspension was handed down
primarily for conduct unbecoming of an officer and being intoxicated off duty,
Fries said.