Pine Bluff Deputy Police Chief Kelvin Sargent reportedly witnessed an exchange between Assistant Chief Ivan Whitfield and Police Chief Brenda Davis-Jones that Whitfield alleges resulted in him being placed on administrative leave by the chief after he refused to tell her the source of information about her boyfriend.
Sargent didn’t return phone calls at his office Tuesday regarding Whitfield’s account of the incident.
Whitfield was placed on administrative leave with pay Thursday pending the results of an internal investigation after one of his service weapons reportedly was found on a man who was arrested the previous weekend.
In a three-page statement signed by Whitfield that was presented to the Pine Bluff City Council, Mayor Carl A. Redus Jr., and others Monday night, Whitfield claimed the investigation is retaliation for his refusal to tell the chief who informed him about an alleged incident in which the chief’s boyfriend was going to be stopped by police because his license was suspended and he had been drinking.
Whitfield also said Sargent came to his office Feb. 1 to tell him that a person had been arrested the previous weekend with one of Whitfield’s service weapons. Davis-Jones was given the same information when she came to Whitfield’s office a short time later, the statement said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
After an exchange between Whitfield and Davis-Jones about the source of the information Whitfield had received about a man Davis-Jones identified as “her friend,” Whitfield said Davis-Jones turned to Sargent and asked if he knew where his daughter was the previous night.
“Sargent said she was at home, and Davis-Jones said she was with my son,” Whitfield said in his account. “Deputy Chief Sargent stated that I am going to put her out of my house. Chief Davis-Jones stated why. D.C. (Deputy Chief) Sargent said I told my daughter not to touch or be around your son because I need my job.
“D.C. Sargent explained to her that if a relationship started between his daughter and the chief’s son, and her son got hurt, that she (Davis-Jones) would take it out on him,” Whitfield said in his account. “Chief Davis-Jones said I wouldn’t do that.”
“D.C. Sargent stated did you (Chief Davis-Jones) hear what you just told Assistant Chief Whitfield what would happen if someone crossed your sons or your man. I can’t chance that,” Whitfield quoted Sargent as saying. “Chief Davis-Jones then promised D.C. Sargent she would not do him like that. D.C. Sargent stated you promise that chief. She said I promise.”
According to Whitfield’s account, Sargent was referring to a statement Whitfield said Davis-Jones had made earlier in the conversation after he refused to identify his source that “if you or anybody messes with my two boys or my man, you are going down. I mean that.”
“At that point, I knew what that meant,” Whitfield said in his account. “I would pay the price for not telling her.”
Whitfield, who has worked for the police department for almost 30 years and is a candidate for Jefferson County judge, has hired attorney Othello C. Cross of the Cross and Kearney law firm to represent him. Sargent was promoted from captain to deputy chief to fill the position vacated when Whitfield moved up.
In a letter to Pine Bluff City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott that was attached to Whitfield’s account, Cross said Whitfield believes that his suspension was retaliatory and asks that the matter be turned over to the Arkansas State Police to investigate “so that his name can be cleared and that he will be returned to work in his capacity of Assistant Chief of Police of the Pine Bluff Police Department.”
The investigation is currently being handled by the Police Department Office of Professional Standards.
On Monday, Davis-Jones said the facts in Whitfield’s account of the incident were inaccurate, and that the state police only investigate crimes, not violations of department policy.
Whitfield was promoted to assistant chief in January 2011 by Davis-Jones. The position of assistant chief is filled by the police chief, who can also remove the person filling that position.