Publication date: 12/04/2001
Officer was drinking before accident
Yet sheriff says alcohol played no role in October crash
BY BOB KASARDA
Times Staff Writer
VALPARAISO -- Just one week after it was announced two county police officers were disciplined for mishandling an accident caused by one of the men, word has surfaced that alcohol was involved.
Porter County Police Sgt. Mike Krawczyk had drunk a couple beers before hopping in his unmarked police car on Oct. 12 and running a red light along Ind. 49, said Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds.
While the subsequent investigation was hampered by an officer's failure to follow policy and turn the scene over to another department, as well as his decision to wait three hours to notify his superiors, Reynolds said there was no evidence the alcohol consumption played a role in the crash. This finding was upheld, he said, by Porter County Prosecutor James Douglas.
As a result, Reynolds is standing behind his decision to discipline Krawczyk by suspending him for 15 days without pay, in addition to stripping him of the right to drive his police car home for a period of six months.
"If we had an inkling that intoxication was involved ... the penalty would have been more severe," said Chief Deputy Dave Lain.
The officer who had supervised the accident site, Dave Leuthardt, received an even harsher penalty last week from the department's merit board. He was demoted from the rank of lieutenant to sergeant, and suffered a pay cut in the process.
There is one further step Reynolds plans to take in hopes of preventing this type of problem from reoccurring. He will ask the merit board to enact a policy prohibiting county officers from drinking any alcohol before getting behind the wheel of a police car. There was no such policy on the books when he took office two years ago, he said.
As a result, Krawczyk violated no rules when he stopped after work on Oct. 12 and had a couple beers at an area computer shop, said Maj. Doug Snider, who conducted the internal investigation with Capt. Mike Jenkins.
"This wasn't a party," Snider said.
Three hours after leaving work, he drove up to Ind. 49 along westbound County Road 500 North, stopped for a red light and then, assuming the signal had malfunctioned, drove through before it turned green. He struck a southbound car, injuring three of its occupants.
The 8:34 p.m. accident was not reported to department administrators for three hours, after which time police are prohibited from administering a blood alcohol test to a driver, Snider said. He does not believe the delay was for the purpose of shielding Krawczyk from the test.
The delay, nonetheless, left investigators at a disadvantage, said Reynolds. They followed through by interviewing anyone remotely involved with the accident and no one accused Krawczyk of being intoxicated, he said.
"The actual accident, we feel, was investigated properly," Reynolds said.
What is most frustrating to Reynolds and his top administrators is the entire fallout could have been avoided had Leuthardt just complied with the existing policy and called in another department as soon as he realized a local officer was involved in the accident. That would have eliminated any doubt Krawczyk was intoxicated and prevented the department from being put into bad light, Reynolds said.
Bob Kasarda can be reached at
[email protected] or (219) 462-5151, Ext. 345.