After a local Police Officer was indicted this year in a scheme to frame drivers for drug possession in north Alabama, one driver is suing for wrongful arrest arguing that a former Centre Officer planted drugs inside his car, and he then used a police dog from another department to find the contraband.
William Sidney Blevins, and his girlfriend Amanda Woods, were driving from Leesburg to Centre, just north of Gadsden, to meet with a friend on the night of January 25th about 11:00 when the officer pulled them over.
According to the complaint, Officer Michael Andrew Kilgore, 39, told Blevins that he’d pulled him over because his tag light was out and he then asked to search the car.
And, according to the complaint, Blevins said “no” to the search, and the Kilgore told them both to step out of the car and he put them in handcuffs.
A K-9 officer, Shane Butler, then arrived at the arrest scene with his dog and talked to Kilgore according to the complaint. Butler walked around the car and ducked down by the open passenger door, out of sight of Blevins, according to the suit.
Butler then stood up and went to get his K-9; once at the car the dog allegedly jumped in the passenger side.
According to the lawsuit “Kilgore came over and reached inside and he then showed the plaintiff a bag of what he assumed was illegal drugs; Kilgore claimed to have found the bag inside the vehicle,” the lawsuit said.
According to the suit Blevins had never seen the bag before; the officers arrested him for possession of methamphetamine, then took him to Cherokee County Jail where he stayed until the next afternoon.
On May the 3rd, Kilgore was arrested for a criminal conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime-distribution. That suit says that those charges against Blevins and several others were dropped after Kilgore’s arrest.
Kilgore is no longer employed by the Centre Police Department.
Butler is also named in the lawsuit. He is currently an officer at the Cedar Bluff Police Department.
In total Kilgore worked at the Centre Police Department for less than a year – that according to the department’s Facebook page.
We will continue to follow the case as it develops.
(www.AL.COM)