Former Chaffee officer faces DWI charge

Former Chaffee, Missouri, police officer Timothy Warner has been charged with driving while intoxicated.

The charge stems from an incident last month that ended on a Cape Girardeau County farm and led the Chaffee City Council to terminate his employment as a police officer.

Warner, 41, of Whitewater was jailed briefly last month after the incident in which he was charged with violating an order of protection for a Chaffee councilwoman to whom he was married.

He was arrested July 10 after he drove his red pickup truck onto farmer Marty Priggle’s land at Route EE and County Road 249, just inside the Cape Girardeau County line, according to the Scott County Sheriff’s Department.

The DWI charge was filed Tuesday in Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court.

Missouri State Highway Patrol officer Ron Eakins said by the time he arrived on the scene, Warner had been detained by other area law-enforcement officers.

Warner was being held in the back seat of a Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department patrol car, Eakins said.

“I immediately smelled a strong odor of intoxicants coming from his breath as he spoke to me,” Eakins wrote in a probable-cause statement filed last week in circuit court.

“Warner had a hard time sitting up, but he finally complied. Warner’s eyes were very red, glassy, bloodshot, watery, and his speech was very slurred and hard to understand,” Eakins said.

Warner refused to take any field-sobriety tests, according to the statement.

Eakins said it was “obvious” Warner was “highly intoxicated.”

He was transported to the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department, where a Breathalyzer test was administered, Eakins said.

Warner’s blood-alcohol level registered at 0.199, according to Eakins. A driver in Missouri is considered legally intoxicated when his or her blood alcohol level exceeds 0.08.

Warner subsequently was transported to the Scott County Jail in connection with the charge of violating a protection order.

He was released on a personal recognizance bond late last month.

Warner is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor DWI charge in Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court in Jackson on Aug. 28.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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