Athens, Madison Police Departments Accused of Protecting Their Own in Alleged Drunk Driving Accident | Alabama

Serious allegations have been made against two north Alabama police departments, accused of protecting one of their own.

Lawsuits filed on behalf of two young women injured in a November 2023 crash say the man responsible was allowed to leave the scene even though responding Madison Police Department officers believed he was drunk.

It turns out that the man behind the wheel of the car that caused the head-on crash is also an officer with the nearby Athens police force.

“Personally, I believe that any of us – you, me, anyone – if this had happened, we would have been in jail,” said Patrick Lamar, the lawyer representing the young women. .

But Lamar said that's not what happened that night at the intersection of Highway 72 and Triana Wall. Two young women returning from a meeting with friends were sitting in the turning lane when they were hit head-on.

Patrick Lamar says the driver did not attempt any evasive action. Lamar says the two women managed to get out of their wrecked car through the passenger door and collapsed to the ground. Lamar says the other driver – identified as Athens Police Officer Isaiah Hatchett – never checked on them even though he apparently wasn't seriously injured himself.

“He didn’t call the emergency line,” Lamar said. “It was passersby who did it to help the girls get off the road.”

The women were taken to hospital with broken bones and bruises. One of the women had to undergo emergency surgery. According to the police report, Madison police, who responded to the scene, believed the driver who hit them was intoxicated.

“The reason we know is because they issued what's called a field sobriety test, which is just little maneuvers that you do – physical maneuvers – to try to show that you don't you're not drunk,” Lamar said. “They noted in the report that the results were inconclusive, which seems very suspicious to us.”

Lamar also says Officer Hatchett refused a breathalyzer test. Officers issued Hatchett a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road and having an open container in his car.

“And then the officers decided that this officer, this Athens police officer, should be allowed to go home,” Lamar said.

Lamar filed a lawsuit against the cities of Athens and Madison (you can read about them below). He believes that despite the lack of evidence at the scene, Madison police gave a colleague a break.

WAAY 31 obtained Officer Hatchett's personnel files. And even though they don't reference this accident, they show that this isn't the first time Hatchett has been in trouble.

In February of this year, Hatchett received a written reprimand for failing to follow proper procedure after a drug arrest (see below). Not only did the suspect walk free, but the disciplinary report also stated that Officer Hatchett's action “exposes the City of Athens to civil liability” and that “further violations…could result in termination.”

WAAY 31 has been verified and Officer Hatchett is still with the Athens Police Department.

“I don't know what happened in this incident, but I know there are guidelines on how to handle a situation like this,” said Donny Shaw, a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 6.

“I couldn't imagine that there would be an incident involving serious property damage, possible injury…I couldn't imagine that there would be any sort of favoritism in a situation like that.”

Lamar says he believes that where there's smoke, there's fire, but he's at a disadvantage because of the officers' actions that night.

“We don’t know how drunk he seemed. And the problem is, we'll never know how drunk he was because the police let him go without testing. »

Lamar said his investigators discovered that Officer Hatchett was driving home that evening from a party – a party that the other officers present thought he was too drunk to drive to.

“He was so drunk at that point that when he tried to leave the party, the people there tried to get him to take a Lyft or an Uber, you know, a ride service,” Lamar said .

The two injured women didn't feel comfortable on camera, but Lamar says his clients want this story told.

“My clients and I believe that law enforcement officers should not give them a break to walk away from a scene where the evidence is as clear as here,” Lamar said. He says it's not a vendetta against the police department, but there can't be double standards. “You can’t have one standard for me and have a different standard for police facing police. I don't think that's how it works.

Lamar was denied access to body camera footage of the incident. He believes Madison police officers are under investigation for allowing the Athens officer to leave the scene of the crash with injuries without a blood-alcohol test.

The city of Madison did not respond to WAAY's requests for comment.

Stay with WAY 31 as we work to learn more about this case.