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IMPD Lt. Steve King demoted after pleading guilty in off-duty DUI case

Posted at 11:08 AM, Aug 15, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-15 12:52:45-04

INDIANAPOLIS -- An officer with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has been demoted after he pleaded guilty in connection to a DUI in May.

Steve King was demoted from lieutenant to sergeant, IMPD spokesperson Kendale Adams said. 

King was taken into custody March 15 on DUI charges. He was off-duty at the time of the arrest.

As part of a plea deal, the charge of operating a motor vehicle with a BAC of .15 percent or more was dropped, but he pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle while endangering a person.

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King was sentenced to one year of probation, where he may carry a gun for IMPD purposes only. His license was also suspended for 90 days and he had to pay a fine of $723.50.

Adams said King is appealing the demotion.

According to a probable cause document filed in March, King, 50, was found unconscious in the driver's seat of his truck, which was stopped diagonally across both lanes of the road in the 8000 block of Gwin Way with its engine running.

A witness called IMPD, which dispatched an officer to the scene. The officer shook King awake, at which point he identified himself as Steven King of IMPD. King was reportedly unable to stand and had to be help up by the other officer.

According to the probable cause affidavit, King told the officer he had been home taking care of his wife, who'd had surgery, and had drunk some wine. He was "unsure how much wine he drank."

At 8:05 p.m., IMPD Lt. Richard Kivett arrived on scene to take over the investigation. Until that point, King had been sitting in the back of the other officer's police car. He had not yet taken a portable breathalyzer test to determine his BAC.

Kivett then read King his Miranda rights and transported him to Eskenazi Hospital for a blood draw. A registered nurse drew two tubes of blood from King at 8:52 p.m. A breathalyzer test was administered at 9:13 p.m., which showed King had a BAC of .255 percent.

The results of the blood draw determined King had a BAC of .315 percent.

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