Morrow Police Chief Jeffery Baker fell asleep at the wheel of his city police car prior to being charged with drunk driving, Clayton County police said Thursday.
Baker was arrested Wednesday night and charged with DUI and other related charges, including having eight open 12-ounce cans of beer inside the car.
He was less than a mile from the city's police headquarters when he was seen stopped at a green traffic light at Jonesboro Road and Southlake Parkway, according to an incident report.
Baker could not be reached for comment Thursday and didn’t return repeated calls to his home phone.
"It's very disappointing," Morrow city manager Jeff Eady told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Eady said that Baker was placed on paid administrative leave until the city completes an internal investigation.
"Once we pull all our facts together, we’ll make a decision about Jeff Baker’s future with the City of Morrow," Eady said.
A Morrow police officer first noticed Baker when Baker’s car didn’t drive through the light and other cars went around him, a Clayton County police report says.
The officer knocked on Baker’s car window to arouse the chief with no results, then tried unsuccessfully to open the door, police said. That’s when the report says Baker’s car began to slowly roll forward.
The officer moved his patrol car nose-to-nose to Baker’s to keep it from moving and approached the chief’s window again, police said. This time, an awakened Baker gave the officer a thumb’s up, according to the report.
Police said the chief’s speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol, and when ordered to pull over to the side of the road, he told the officer, “I will get right on it, buddy.”
But he didn’t move his car.
When told to put the car in park, police said Baker backed up and drove around the Morrow officer's squad car, veered over divider lanes in the road, traveled about 40 mph on wet roads to the nearby police headquarters and pulled into his parking space.
Clayton County police were called, and the responding Clayton officer arrived to find Baker smoking a cigarette outside the building, police said. The chief refused to take any field sobriety tests and was arrested.
Baker was taken to the Clayton jail, where he was released on $6,300 bond.
He has been charged with DUI, traffic light violation, impeding traffic, driving with an open container, driving too fast for conditions, making an improper lane change and disobeying police directing traffic.
This isn’t Baker’s first time in trouble.
In 2008, the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council accused him of lying about police firearm records and voted unanimously to revoke Baker’s certification.
“He falsified gun records, including his own,” Georgia P.O.S.T. executive director Ken Vance told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He signed off that he attended training when he actually didn’t.”
Baker appealed to the state’s administrative law judge, and the case has remained in a holding pattern since, Vance said.
Vance said this recent incident could threaten Baker’s certification again.
“There may be a point in the future where this particular case is added to the old one,” Vance said. “The current situation is evolving. We’ll have to see by the first of the week where we are.”
Until the issue has been resolved, Eady said Capt. Greg Tatroe will become the interim police commander.
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