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EPD Officer With DUI Officially Promoted To Detective

Jennifer Weingart
/
WVPE Public Radio

 

Elkhart’s Police Merit Commission officially promoted to detective a police officer who has a DUI conviction in Noblesville, Indiana from last spring.

Officer Brandan Roundtree was pulled over and tested at .083, just over the legal limit to drive, in Noblesville in March of 2017. He pleaded guilty in August, was given a 60 day license suspension, 60 days in jail--which was suspended--and a years probation.

He remained on the police force in Elkhart during that time, as was not disciplined by the department. He was officially promoted to Detective by the Police Merit Commission on Monday, six months after being promoted to the position by Chief Ed Windbigler.

Acting police chief Todd Thayer says the discrepancy in the promotion dates was a mistake.

“It was an error. It was something that fell through the cracks. That’s all it was. We didn’t get to him, we recognized our error and we corrected it. In no way was it a cover up.”

The South Bend Tribune reports Roundtree’s promotion was first brought before the board in May 2017. Board president James Rieckhoff.

“As I recall the commission approved his promotion, but before it took effect the department asked that it be pulled back pending the resolution of these other things.”

Thayer repeated a claim also made by Windbigler that the DUI was ‘not done how we would do it.’

“We question the whole process down there of how that arrest took place. We wouldn’t have handled it that way in our community for a DUI.”

Thayer declined to clarify why he believed the DUI was questionable. The Elkhart Police Department is under increased scrutiny after a series of South Bend Tribune and ProPublica investigationsuncovered issues in the department’s disciplinary practices.

 

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