A Washington County Sheriff's deputy lied when telling superiors he had not been drinking before crashing a patrol vehicle in September, according to an internal investigation report.
Cpl. Daniel Walker, 27, initially told supervisors he had fallen asleep at the wheel when his 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe patrol vehicle ran off the road on Sept. 18 at Black Oak and Frank James roads, crashing through a fence and ending up in a field, according to an Office of Professional Conduct report by Sgt. Steve Whitmill.
However, after taking a urinalysis test, the 5 1/2-year veteran of the Sheriff's Office later retracted the story about not drinking, the report states. The substance screen test revealed Walker had a blood alcohol content level of 0.005 percent, according to the report.
"Walker was dishonest from the start of this investigation," the report states.
Walker resigned and is no longer employed with the Washington County Sheriff's office, said Kelly Cantrell, spokeswoman.
Sheriff Tim Helder said Walker wasn't arrested and it would be hard to prosecute him.
"To me we came in so late in the game we really couldn't prove a level of intoxication during the wreck, really most of that information in the investigation came after the fact," Helder said.
Helder said the deputies involved were good employees and he's dissapointed in their decisions.
"I expect my deputies to take corrective action that is to determine whether you had too much to drink and do whatever to arrest you," Helder said. "Well I would expect them to do the same thing with a deputy who made an egregious mistake like that."
Two deputies involved in the investigation, Cpls. Jacob Waggoner and Scott Hammersla, resigned on Oct. 24 rather than being fired, according to letters from Maj. Rick Hoyt to the Office of Law Enforcement Standards in Little Rock.