Officer Andrew Dodds Arrested for Choking his 11-year-old Daughter

An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department patrolman has been arrested after his 11-year-old daughter accused him of dragging her down a hallway and choking her.

The officer, Andrew M. Dodds, 35, is being held on $100,000 bond, said Lt. Jeff Duhamell, an IMPD spokesman. He has been suspended from the department without pay, and IMPD Chief Michael Spears has recommended he be terminated from the department pending approval from the department's merit board, Duhamell said.

Dodds faces preliminary charges of battery and strangulation.

Dodds, an officer in the city's Northwest District, was sworn in to the department in July 2004. Duhamell said he had received commendation letters for his work from an agent with the U.S. Postal Service in February 2007 and from an IMPD detective in January 2008. He was nominated for Northwest District Officer of the Month in August.

"This is a family incident not involving anything to do with his police work on the street," Duhamell said. "He's a stellar performer out there. Unfortunately he stepped over the line, and now he's going to have to pay the consequences of his actions."

According to a probable cause affidavit, Dodds' daughter told an interviewer at the Child Advocacy Center that she was visiting her father's Northeastside house Tuesday. When she spilled milk on the couch, Dodds told her to go to her room, but she refused because Dodds was saying negative things about her mother and the girl was defending her, she said.

Dodds then grabbed her legs, twisted them and pulled her off the couch, dragging her down the hallway to her bedroom, according to the affidavit. When she came out of the room to use the restroom, she told investigators, Dodds grabbed her by the neck, put her against the wall and started choking her, then he let go, the girl climbed out of her bedroom window and went to the neighbors' house.

Dodds was arrested Wednesday. On Jan. 24, police investigated a domestic disturbance involving Dodds and his wife, Heather. The incident involved an argument in which both Andrew and Heather Dodds alleged physical harm, according to the written report of the incident.

Duhamell said he did not know if the couple was in the midst of a divorce.

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