Post by KC on May 26, 2006 19:58:43 GMT -5
Ottawa County Sheriff Dennis King
May 26, 2006 - MIAMI, Okla. -- Ottawa County Sheriff Dennis King has resigned amid a federal investigation into a handcuffing incident and was taken to a hospital after collapsing Thursday afternoon, officials said.
District Attorney Eddie Wyant said King's condition late Thursday was serious and that "we're all very concerned for his well-being."
Ottawa County Commission Chairman Russell Earls said King contacted him Tuesday and said he was leaving the department.
An FBI spokesman confirmed Thursday that the agency was investigating the case in which Ottawa County deputies handcuffed a mentally ill woman to a hospital gate May 2.
King has been sheriff since 1999, when he was appointed to replace Jack Harkins after Harkins died.
In a special meeting Thursday, the commission discussed King's resignation and discussed an interim appointment until they could call an election, scheduled for July 25.
Commissioners appointed Undersheriff Terry Durborow as interim sheriff.
In a one-paragraph resignation letter written Wednesday, King said, "It has been my pleasure serving in this position
and serving a wonderful staff. I thank the people for electing me. I have been offered a position in the private sector that is impossible for me to turn down."
Earls said he was "utterly shocked" at King's resignation.
King collapsed Thursday afternoon while taking a walk and was reportedly taken by helicopter to a Joplin, Mo., hospital, county officials said.
Ronnie Cline, Miami Fire Department assistant fire chief, said King was unconscious when emergency responders arrived.
Bre LaFerla, a spokeswoman for St. John Regional Medical Center in Joplin, said she could not discuss whether King was a patient at the hospital.
King's office has been under scrutiny since the handcuffing incident.
Jeff Dismukes, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said the FBI contacted the department within the past two weeks regarding the handcuffing. The state agency operates the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, where the incident occurred, and filed a complaint with the Department of Justice.
Gary Johnson, a spokesman for the FBI in Oklahoma, said the agency has opened a preliminary civil rights investigation into the matter.
"Upon completion of our preliminary investigation, we will forward the results to the Department of Justice," Johnson said. He said the department would determine whether the handcuffing incident violated any federal civil rights.
The 32-year-old woman had been held in the Ottawa County Jail since April 3 on charges of assault and battery of a police officer, destruction of county property and public intoxication, records show.
On May 2, the woman was found incompetent to stand trial and found to be a danger to herself or others if released, court records show.
Sheriff's deputies transported her to the Oklahoma Forensic Center but left after they were told that they lacked the proper paperwork, said state Health Secretary Terry Cline. The deputies returned and handcuffed the woman to a motorized gate outside the mental hospital.
A security guard at the hospital retrieved a key and freed the woman.
Cline and two state lawmakers blasted the Sheriff's Office for its handling of the matter. The Department of Mental Health also filed a complaint with the Department of Human Services.
The 190-bed facility, formerly called Eastern State Hospital, evaluates people whose competency for trial is in doubt, restores defendants to competency when possible and provides long-term treatment for people found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Earlier this month King confirmed that the woman was handcuffed to the fence, saying the District Attorney's Office advised him that it is illegal to hold such defendants in jail.
The case was not the first in which the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office left a handcuffed prisoner at the hospital. Deputies apparently left two people handcuffed to chairs inside a building there in the past.
King is a former assistant chief of the Commerce Police Department. In 2000, he ran for election to the office to which he had been appointed, promising to rid the office of corruption.