Just hours before Officer Paul Sparks committed suicide, a woman filed a sexual assault complaint against him. The Dalton Police Chief says his investigation shows Sparks had 'improper sexual conduct' with the woman, but he's still trying to figure out if that conduct was criminal.
Step inside the Oyster Pub and Grill and you'll meet a number of Officer Paul Sparks' friends.
"He would just come in here and check on everything in the bar and keep us all laughing and cut up, everybody loved him," Kellie Frye, a friend, says.
"If we had a girl that was too drunk he would put her in a car and always get her home safely," Sabrina Henderson, a friend, says.
We've learned that while on duty Sparks responded to break up a fight inside of the bar just hours before he took his own life inside of the Dalton Police Department.
Employees tell us that one of the women involved in the fight had to leave the Oyster Pub and go next door to the Guest Inn to get her id out of her room. According to the police report the Guest Inn is where the alleged sexual assault took place.
The police report states that at four a.m. officers responded to a sexual assault call at the Guest Inn - that's two hours before Sparks committed suicide.
"Well I think we're still in shock at the loss of officer sparks and its difficult to work through these things however I think we owe it to the citizens and the public to make sure we get all the facts," Dalton Police Chief Jason Parker says.
Facts which could shed light as to why Sparks took his own life. Parker says both his office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are now looking into the sexual assault allegation.
"I don't believe it for one minute in the world," Frye says. "He's just not that kind of person at all."
"Naw I don't believe it, I can't believe it," Henderson says.
But while the investigation continues, the people who knew Sparks the best want to remember the officer who helped them get home and always kept them smiling.
"He was a friend," Henderson says.
"He was a friend, a police officer, he was just a very well loved man," Frye says.
The Dalton Police Chief says that his investigation shows that none of his other officers were involved in this incident.
1 comment:
I was a very close and young friend of Officer Sparks. ("Sparky") I work at a bar in Dalton as well. (Not Oyster Pub) Sparks would come in almost every night to see me and check up on the bar. He would stop by my office at my day job someimes as well just to "check up on me" and see my "beautiful lil angel" (as he always called her) I was shocked to hear of his death, but even more shocked at the allegations being made against him. Paul was NOT that kind of person. He may have made a career mistake but rape was not a word in his vocabulary or a thought in his head. We will all LOVE you and miss you dearly Paul. *RIP*
always*
T.W.
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