Dickson officer to face hearing over inmate drinking incident

Enter Headline here

September 9th 2016,

DICKSON, TN (WSMV) - At least three inmates in Dickson County caused quite the stir when they used a bathroom break to steal Kentucky Deluxe whiskey, syringes and a knife from an officer's locker.

It all happened at their holding cell area while they were waiting to go into Municipal Court. The inmates were supposed to be under the watch of Dickson police and court bailiffs.A newly released internal investigation said that Patrolman Ebram Azer was supposed to be watching the inmates. However, surveillance video shows him sitting at a desk typing on the computer while the inmates were getting drunk in the cells behind him.

Inmate Timothy Cederoth became so drunk he vomited on the cell floor and had to be taken to the hospital.Cederoth told police the gallon of whiskey was full so they "killed it." One of his last memories after drinking heavily was talking to another inmate and then waking up in the hospital. None of the officer's caught the drinking in the act."What you've got is, it's called complacency," said City of Dickson Police Chief Rick Chandler. 

"People do something over and over so many times, they become complacent on doing what they should."The internal report says that inmate Leonard Beard admitted to police he sneaked into an officer's unlocked locker and stole a gallon of whiskey, syringes and a knife, during a bathroom break. Beard told police in an interview, "If the officer was doing his job and not on his phone it would not have happened."Patrolman Azer used to work for the Davidson County Jail. He said he was working off of five hours of sleep that day, but could not answer for his actions. Azer has resigned as a court bailiff. 

He is now facing a disciplinary hearing next week"It could be suspension to written reprimands. Several different options we have," Chandler said.The internal investigation revealed that the breach could've been prevented sooner. The day before, on Aug. 15, another group of inmates tried to break into the unlocked locker on their break at the courthouse holding area, Patrolman J.D. Sumerour stopped them. 

The report says Patrolman Sumerour saw the whiskey in the locker, but didn't report it."We're going to look at all our policies and we're going to start taking action against them," Chandler said, about the changes he plans to make in the department. "We're going to monitor them, a lot better."Officer Scott Hull, who occupied the unsecured locker, was already on administrative leave. being investigated for missing contraband. 

The lock had been broken off of Hull's locker as police searched for missing evidence from another case. They never locked it back, leaving it vulnerable to inmates who have to walk through the are to get to court from their holding cells. Channel 4 asked the Chief Chandler what he's doing to prevent any of this from happening again, and policies he has changed.

"We are only allowing six prisoners at a time, and each time one of them has to go to the restroom, they've got to be one-on-one there's no more groups," Chandler said.He said they will be investigating if other officers could face disciplinary actions from the incident.Copyright 2016 WSMV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.