EUDORA, Ark. — A southern Arkansas police chief has been arrested by state police for allegedly driving a man he'd arrested to a county road, assaulting him, and leaving him there stranded.
Arkansas State Police (ASP) said in a press release on Jan. 31 that 45-year-old Eudora Police Chief Michael Henderson Pitts was arrested on Tuesday, Jan. 30.
According to court documents, the prosecuting attorney for the Tenth Judicial District requested help from ASP in investigating the allegations against Police Chief Pitts.
Dispatch call logs from the night of Oct. 26 were flagged during ASP's investigation, showing Pitts responding to a gas station to remove a man for "causing a disruption at the business," ASP said.
Pitts told investigators the man was under arrest for criminal trespassing, public intoxication, and terroristic threatening.
Pitts reportedly told ASP he had to release the man because there wasn't enough room in his patrol car. However, the alleged victim told investigators that Pitts immediately handcuffed him and put him in the back of his patrol car, before saying he'd "beat his ass."
The man alleges that while handcuffed, Pitts drove him to a rural county road. "Chief Pitts forcibly removed him from the patrol unit and subjected him to a brutal assault, resulting in significant injuries to his face and head," according to court documents.
Pictures of the man's injuries were taken by family members and given to investigators.
During the interview, the man told ASP that during the assault, a crack pipe he was concealing fell and he couldn't retrieve it. Investigators said they went to the location the man described, with a description of the crack pipe, and found it during the search.
Authorities also obtained search warrants for geo-location of Chief Pitt's cellular data, which tracked his phone to be on County Road 86 at the time of the alleged assault. "It should also be noted that the Historical Precision Location provided by AT&T shows to have a 'Location accuracy likely better than 100 meters,'" officials said.
The man also told investigators he'd left a ball cap in Pitts' patrol unit after he was left stranded on the county road and found it in a dumpster later, after the incident. Authorities said in surveillance footage from the night of Oct. 26, Pitts was seen driving a gray Dodge Charger near the same dumpster the man had described, stopping, and turning his lights off.
The Tenth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney asked ASP’s Special Investigations Unit in November 2023 to investigate allegations of crimes committed by Chief Pitts the previous month.
Chief Pitts surrendered to the Chicot County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, January 30, 2024. His bond was set at $5,000.