SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Cpl. Chad Moxon, of the Griffin Police Department Uniform Patrol Division, was on Monday, Sept. 21 arrested by the Pike County Sheriff’s Office on charges of DUI and failure to maintain a lane.
According to Chief Steve Heaton, Moxon has since voluntarily resigned from the GPD.
“I was notified Tuesday morning through our staff that we had an officer who’d been arrested by Pike County. I was contacted by (Pike County) Sheriff Thomas later Tuesday morning to advise me that they had arrested one of our officers,” Heaton said. “We immediately placed him on administrative leave and opened an internal investigation.”
The Pike County Sheriff’s Office reported Moxon was initially reported to authorities for speeding.
“I was told he was driving his motorcycle between 95 and 100 miles an hour,” Heaton said. “Motorists had called the Sheriff’s Office complaining there was someone driving a motorcycle at a high rate of speed. Pike County deputies began searching for the vehicle and actually, I believe sat up at a location where they believed the motorcycle might be heading. When they observed the motorcycle, they pulled it over and found that the driver appeared to be intoxicated, and as a result of their investigation, they made an arrest. It was later determined that it was a Griffin police officer.”
Heaton said Moxon did inform Pike County S.O personnel that he, too, was a law enforcement officer, but it was not done as a means of requesting preferential treatment.
“For some background on it, I was told that Chad did not offer up that he was a law enforcement officer right away, so it wasn’t one of those things where he tried to get out of it or try to get favor,” he explained. “Matter of fact, the deputy that stopped him, or was there, said they found out he was a law enforcement officer when he told them that he was armed, and they asked why and he said he’s a law enforcement officer. They asked where, and that’s how that went.”
After learning of Moxon’s arrest, less than 45 minutes passed before Heaton instructed Lt. Darrel Dix to initiate an Internal Affairs investigation.
“Right after that, I was told by Lt. Dix that he had contacted Officer Moxon to begin the internal – this was all Tuesday morning – and Officer Moxon indicated that he was going to resign, and he did. He turned his stuff in Tuesday – all his equipment – and we received his letter of resignation Wednesday that was effective the day before,” Heaton said.
Although he was witnessed driving at a very high rate of speed, Maj. David Neal, of the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, said Moxon was not cited for speeding because the Uniform Patrol deputy did not clock him on radar. Neal said Moxon registered a .108 on his breathalyzer test.
The GPD has reported to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council that Moxon resigned while under investigation.
