Bogus statements from Missouri deputies suggest Carol broke her own arm by flailing about in back seat of patrol car after being arrested and handcuffed

Officer Debi Wade

Missouri deputies, in written statements about our unlawful eviction, suggest my wife, Carol, broke her own arm by flailing about in the back seat of a patrol car after she had been arrested and placed in handcuffs.

We're not making this up. Is there any chance this actually happened? No, and we will provide proof that it didn't happen. But first, let's examine officer statements from the Criminal Investigations Case Report we received from discovery requests in the pending criminal case ("assault on a law enforcement officer") against Carol.

Let's begin with the narrative from Officer Debi Wade, which begins on page 2 of the report. That's the same Debi Wade who prepared the Probable Cause (PC) Statement against Carol. (Note: The Criminal Investigations Report and PC Statement can be viewed by clicking at the links above, and both documents are embedded at the end of this post.)

Officer Wade's written statements are revelatory on a number of levels, but here is the main one: Her PC Statement, dated 9/22/15 (13 days after our eviction) makes no mention of Carol's broken arm. In other words, the document upon which Carol's arrest is based gives no indication she was injured. Wade's Incident Report, dated 9/10/15 (one day after our eviction) states clearly that Carol's arm was broken. Why the discrepancy? That is one of dozens of questions raised by the officers' accounts.

Here is Officer Wade's account of Carol's trip to a patrol car and what supposedly happened once Carol was inside:

As soon as Lt. [Christian] Conrad returned with the car, he and Deputy [Scott] Harrison helped [Carol] up from the ground, and Deputy Harrison walked her to the back seat of the patrol car. Carol continued jerking her arms in an attempt to get her hands out of the handcuffs again. We explained to her that if she would relax and quit fighting the cuffs, that they wouldn't hurt her wrists.

Once she was detained in the back of the car, Deputy Harrison retrieved her [Missouri] ID from her purse, and then gave the purse to Mr. Shuler. Mr. Shuler was asked to leave the scene so that the movers could get to work. He sat in his car across the street, refusing to leave the area while we allowed the movers in the house and turned the keys over to them. When I walked past the patrol car a couple of minutes later, Carol was screaming and jerking her body all over the back seat and cage of the car very violently.

Deputy Harrison went over to check on her. He asked her if she was alright. She complained again that her wrists hurt, so he double checked the handcuffs again for comfort. The handcuffs still had enough room that he could put a finger between her wrist and the inner edge of the cuff. Carol, only then mentioned that her arm hurt, but she was not exhibiting signs of pain, aside from that one calm verbal [cue]. We talked with Deputy Harrison briefly about alerting the jail that she would need a psych evaluation upon arrival at the jail, due to her very erratic and violent behavior.

Now, we come to information that Officer Wade left out of the Probable Cause Statement used to justify Carol's arrest:

After Deputy Harrison checked out at the jail with Carol, he called to advise me that she had requested that medical staff look at her left arm. He said that she couldn't see anything wrong, but he photographed it, since she was complaining that it hurt. He said that after jail medical staff looked at her arm, they insisted that she needed to get medical clearance from the ER before they would admit her into the jail. Deputy Harrison took pictures of her arm again at the hospital, as it started to show signs of swelling and bruising just above her left elbow. The initial thought was that she may have dislocated it (her elbow) when she was thrashing about in the back seat of the patrol car. Since we had seen her throw her body against the back of the seat and cage violently on scene just prior to transport, and there was no complaint about her arm until after that, it was the only thing that made sense to us.

Once the X-ray came back, Deputy Harrison called again to advise that her arm was broken and was going to require surgery. He further stated that she would have to be transported by ambulance to Cox South for the surgery. He said that Carol had remained calm throughout the trip to the jail and hospital, never acting aggressively in the least. After notifying my chain of command of the status change, it was decided to release the P.C. charges on her and let the hospital know that she was being left on her own recognizance and was free to go when they were done with her. Deputy Harrison told Carol that the 3rd degree assault case would be submitted to the prosecutor's officer for her assault on a law enforcement officer.

There is so much false rubbish in there that I'm still trying to digest it all. This seems clear: Once Officer Debi Wade starts lying, she can't stop herself.

Carol Tovich Shuler

Here are three key takeaways from Wade's report:

(1) She essentially tries to blame Carol's broken arm on Carol, from flailing (while handcuffed) in the back seat of a patrol car;

(2) Wade knew that Carol was seriously injured when she wrote her Probable Cause Statement, but she said nothing about that in the document that was used to justify Carol's arrest.

(3) Wade admits that charges against Carol had been "released" due to a "status change." In plain language, that appears to mean, "We'd better drop these charges because we broke this woman's f-----g arm." Wade gives no indication why charges later were reinstated once they already had been dropped.

We have evidence that will prove Debi Wade is lying -- and that she should be referred for criminal prosecution. We will address her lies in upcoming posts. But first, let's look at statements from other officers on the scene.


(To be continued)