Sherman police on Monday arrested a battalion chief employed by the Springfield Fire Department
after he reportedly hurled obscenities at officers.
Chad
Bates, 44, spent the night at the Sangamon County jail after he was arrested at
his home in Sherman and booked on a felony charge of intimidation and a
misdemeanor count of obstructing a peace officer. He was released
from jail on Tuesday after posting a $500 bond.
Bates
was suspended for six days last year after bringing a gun into a firehouse. He
told superiors that he was carrying the weapon because he was worried about his
ex-wife’s husband. Bates underwent counseling in 2015 after the department
determined that he had falsely told police that his ex-wife’s husband had
slashed his tires. Bates this year prevailed in a lawsuit against the city’s civil service commission, which sought to remove him from a battalion chief promotion list
due to his disciplinary record. The city recently promoted him from captain to
battalion chief on what is supposed to be a temporary basis.
The
latest trouble began shortly after 9 p.m. on Monday while officers with an
arrest warrant were looking for someone who had fled from a house in Bates’
neighborhood, according to a Sherman police report. “Who are you fucking with
now?” someone yelled, according to a report filed by Sherman deputy chief Chris
Fulscher.
“I
initially thought it was someone who recognized me who was playing a prank on
me,” Fulscher wrote in his report.
It
was Bates, whom Fulscher says was walking toward him accompanied by his wife.
Fulscher
wrote that he recognized Bates from a pending child abuse investigation.
Bates was the suspect in the abuse case, which had been investigated by
Fulscher and referred to the state Department of Children and Family Services.
According to the deputy chief’s report, the state had substantiated the
allegation, and Bates is appealing the finding. No details on the child abuse
case were immediately available.
“I
told Chad that it could be him that I was looking for,” Fulscher wrote. “He
walked past my location.”
Shortly
afterward, Fulscher said that he told another officer not to bother when the
officer began asking Bates whether he’d seen the person police were seeking.
Bates responded with obscenities, according to police reports, yelling that
“police just fucked with people.” The cussing continued even though Bates’ wife
was telling her husband to stop, according to police reports.
“Chad
was 10 to 15 feet away from my location, as I was traveling away from him, and
he said that if I wasn’t hiding behind that badge, he’d fuck me up,” Fulscher
wrote. “I perceived that as a threat/intimidation towards my performance with
the child abuse investigation.”
Another
officer who was present corroborated Fulscher’s account in a separate report.
After
completing their search for the person who’d fled the home near Bates’ house,
Fulscher and another officer visited Bates at his residence.
“I
told him I wanted to know what his intentions were regarding his statements
that he had said,” Fulscher wrote in his report. “He smiled, looked in my
direction and said that I knew what his intentions were. I walked towards him,
told him he was under arrest and told him to place his hands behind his back.”
Neither
Bates nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment. Bates has been placed on administrative leave.
In
the lawsuit against the city, Bates’ attorney had argued that the city’s civil
service commission erred last fall in barring Bates from the promotion list.
Any such prohibition should have been meted out during disciplinary proceedings
that concluded months earlier, when Bates was suspended. Sangamon County
Circuit Court Judge John Madonia in February ruled in Bates’ favor. The city has
appealed. Bates was promoted following a May 21 hearing during which Madonia
refused to stay his March ruling in favor of Bates.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2018.
