South Bend police have arrested one of their own officers on domestic violence charges. The officer already had been taken off the street pending an investigation into an incident last year.
Police say shortly after midnight Wednesday they responded to a report of a disturbance in the 600 block of Victoria Street.
When they arrived they learned that 24-year-old officer Emanuel Garcia had been in an off-duty dispute with a female. Police would not release more than that Thursday.
Despite a brief struggle, officers arrested Garcia on preliminary charges of domestic violence battery in the presence of a child under 16, resisting law enforcement, and interference with reporting of a crime. He was held without bail Thursday in the St. Joseph County Jail awaiting formal charges from the prosecutor.
Jail records say they’re also holding Garcia for another unidentified agency. Police deferred to the prosecutor for more information on that, but the prosecutor did not reply to WVPE’s information request.
Jail records say Garcia lives in Elkhart and has been a South Bend officer since 2021. The department says he had been on restrictive duty, meaning he can’t do street patrols, pending an internal investigation from a September case. Garcia fired his gun in that case that resulted in drug charges against a 39-year-old man.
