LITTLE ROCK — The arrest of a convicted felon accused of impersonating a police officer in Mayflower has led to the suspension of the town’s police chief pending an investigation by the Faulkner County sheriff’s office, authorities said Tuesday.
Mayflower Mayor Randy Holland suspended Chief Richard Shaw with pay on Sunday, a day after the traffic-stop arrest of John Brinkley, 33, on a felony charge of impersonating a police officer.
Brinkley of North Little Rock was armed with a .40-caliber handgun at the time of his arrest, sheriff’s Lt. Matt Rice said. Brinkley also had a dog with him in his sport utility vehicle, which was marked “canine,” authorities said.
Brinkley also is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and in possession of a blue light and with driving on a suspended license, which resulted from a past driving under-the-influence conviction, Rice said.
Sgt. Robert Alcon, Mayflower’s acting police chief, said Tuesday that the sheriff’s office “is conducting afull investigation into what happened.”
“The chief is kind of the focus of that investigation,” Alcon added.
But Alcon said, “in no way, shape or fashion was he [Brinkley] ever employed by the Mayflower Police Department. He was an independent contractor. He and the chief had some arrangement to use his services” for dogs in narcotics cases. “Things got a little out of control.”
Alcon declined to be more specific.
Mayflower, a town of about 2,230 residents, has five full-time police officers, including Shaw, and two part-time ones.
Brinkley was held in the county jail in lieu of bond because he also is accused of a probation violation.
The defendant has previous felony property theft and hot check convictions, Prosecuting Attorney Marcus Vaden said.
Brinkley has a pretrial hearing Dec. 1 in Faulkner County Circuit Court in Conway. He already was scheduled for a jury trial that same day on charges of theft of property and fraudulent use of a credit card.
Conway attorney Lynn Plemmons, who represents Brinkley in the case that is already set for trial, declined to comment until he could talk with his client.
Brinkley’s wife, Jennifer, said Tuesday that her husband and Shaw are longtime friends and that the chief knew her husband had a felony conviction.She said she and her husband have a business for which they recently bought two dogs to sniff for drugs and explosives at companies.
Shaw, meantime, was trying to track down drugs in the Mayflower school system and asked her to do some searches there for free, Jennifer Brinkley said. The chief also used her husband as a backup officer and after one frightening incident told her husband to start carrying a firearm, she said.
Her husband reminded the chief of his felony conviction and probation, she said.
But she said, “The chief told him, ‘Don’t worry about it. I can give you an exception ... as long as you’re in the city limits.’” So, her husband eventually started carrying a gun when he helped police, she said.
“He used [my husband] for whatever he needed him to do” - for extra manpower and drug searches, she said. Her husband even handcuffed a suspect, she said. Her husband helped the police for free, although he was reimbursed for fuel, she said.
Shaw, the suspended chief, did not return phone messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Rice said the sheriff’s office had heard that Mayflower had a new canine officer named John Brinkley and that sheriff’s Sgt. Dalton Elliott decided to see if that was the same Brinkley with the felony record. Elliott arrested Brinkley after seeing him in a uniform, and with a gun and his private vehicle’s blue lights activated.
Asked if Brinkley was really a canine officer for the Mayflower Police Department, Rice said, “In his own mind he was. ... We still don’t know if he was working for the Mayflower Police Department” or if he was backing them up.
Rice said Brinkley would get out of his vehicle at traffic stops, go up to the stopped vehicle and watch the person police had pulled over.
“It seemed to be obvious to them [the Mayflower police on the scene] that he was there,” Rice said.
A sheriff’s report indicates that the alleged offenses took place from Nov. 16 through Saturday.
Vaden said he has not talked with the sheriff’s office but, “I think the thing they’re trying to figure out was, was [Brinkley] just out on his own riding around and playing police officer and nobody really bothered to check, or did one or more individuals know he was a convicted felon and still allow him to pretend to be a police officer.
“I’m thinking they’re trying to figure out, did someone authorize him to do that, or did they just not pay attention to what they were doing.”
In any event, Vaden said, “I cannot fathom any reason for him to be out there toting a gun and pretending to be a police officer. That’s just completely obviously unacceptable.”
The Mayflower mayor was out of his office because of illness Tuesday, the office said. He did not return a phone message left at his home.
Jennifer Brinkley said the situation “could have been handled a little bit more professionally.”
“To me, it was just a big misunderstanding,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/25/2009