Former CPD officer resigns day before disciplinary hearing regarding public intoxication incident back in February

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The Hamilton County Sheriff says he is making changes after an incident with a now former Chattanooga Police Officer, Craig Joel.

Sheriff Jim Hammond spoke passionately in a press conference Monday afternoon.

Chattanooga Police says Joel resigned one day before disciplinary hearing regarding public intoxication incident back in February.

In the internal investigation report, Sgt. Kevin Trussel wrote that a complaint was phoned in about a man in a black Ford car “falling over drunk.” The report says the caller was afraid that the intoxicated subject was going to drive off in the vehicle.

The caller reported that it was possibly an undercover police vehicle that the subject, now identified as Joel, was seen sitting in.

The report goes on to say that the caller saw the subject begin walking toward the nearby marina before later getting into the vehicle and trying to start it.

The caller reportedly saw two other people trying to stop him because “he was clearly not okay.”

Eventually, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

Monday, the Sheriff admitted that Joel was given special privileges at the scene and says they were “protecting” their own. He says he is making changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

The deputy that initially responded did not know Joel was an officer and found out from her supervisor.

The sheriff says that he feels this is no reason to fire anyone in his department, but he will be making changes so that officers are not given special treatment in cases like this.

Sheriff says that publicly intoxicated people are sometimes given the opportunity to be picked up by a friend, but in this case, the officer’s name was left out of the report.

The officer’s car was also moved by officials to an actual parking spot, because it was initially parked in a loading zone.

The sheriff says that if they arrested every person who they witness publicly drunk, they would need to “build two jails.”

Craig Joel says that he is out of town today, but he believes it is being blown out of proportion.

He says it is “carried as a psychiatric issue which is why it’s not been discussed in the last 10 months.”

He says the information that was released to a local media organization over the weekend stemmed from a private conversation with HR. He questioned how this information even became a matter of public record.

We are waiting on more information about what happened after Joel was taken away from the scene. We’ve requested the video, 911 calls and more reports about this case.

We will update this story when more information becomes available.