CECIL TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Two Cecil Township Police Department employees are on administrative leave after being indicted by a grand jury because of a traffic stop that happened seven years ago.
“I think that the officers were placed in a very difficult situation,” legal analyst and defense attorney Blaine Jones told Channel 11
That’s what Jones told Channel 11 about the state attorney general’s case against two Cecil Police officers — Sergeant John Holt and Officer Shawn McNaughton.
Back in September 2018, the Cecil police department got a call for a man driving drunk after a party, so they pulled him over.
According to the indictment, the traffic stop happened at the intersection of Cecil Henderson Road and Cecil Elementary Drive.
According to the officers, they could smell alcohol coming from the car, but they say the driver claimed he wasn’t drinking.
Investigators never identified the driver and only refer to him as “John Doe.” When police pulled him over, Doe asked McNaughton to call a ”senior township official.”
They went back to the police department, where officers discovered Doe had a BAC of 0.15, which is over the legal limit.
Doe then once more requested McNaughton to contact a “senior township official.” After a four-minute phone conversation, the official advised that the decision was up to the police.
Doe was never charged.
“So, if you have a friend of the commissioner saying give this person a call, and you call and the commissioner says you don’t have to do it.. sure, that’s like when I played college sports and my coach said ‘it’s not mandatory these work outs, but I hope to see you there,’” Jones said.
Investigators say the call was first noted as a DUI arrest, then was changed to a traffic warning, which was ultimately approved by Sgt. Holt.
After the incident, Doe wasn’t permitted to drive, and investigators say Sergeant Holt drove him home.
“If a jury hears this, any reasonable person sitting on a jury is going to think that an officer took the precaution of driving this person home because the person was incapable of driving home themselves,” Jones said.
We asked the township a number of questions regarding this investigation, and they gave us a statement saying in part - “the officers are on administrative leave pending the investigation,” and they are committed to transparency and accountability.
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