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| Updated: 11/07/2011 9:42 pm |
Published: 11/07/2011 8:36 pm |
LITTLE ROCK, AR - One month after wrecking his vehicle, the number two man at the Little Rock Police department says he is retiring.
Assistant police chief Carlos Corbin says he is leaving December 1st, but the investigation into the accident is expected to take longer.
FOX16 spoke with Corbin by phone on Monday and he declined to say how or what caused the accident that totaled his 2009 Chevy Impala.
In a four-line, one paragraph letter dated November 3rd, Corbin said he was retiring after 29 years with LRPD. The decision comes while an active investigation into the accident is still on-going.
In the original accident report Corbin told responding officers he was the victim of a hit and run while traveling south on MLK in the early morning hours of October 2nd.
But a crash scene investigation afterward portrayed a totally different scenario.
It found no hit and run, instead it determined Corbin rammed a cedar tree in Interstate Park off Arch Street a couple miles away from where he said the accident occurred.
"There is an explanation," LRPD chief Stuart Thomas said Monday. "We'll just work it out."
Thomas says he doesn't believe his assistant chief filed a false report.
"At this particular time I'm not prepared to suggest that Chief Corbin didn't report as best he could given the circumstances," Thomas says.
A source close to the investigation says the circumstances include a doctor prescribed sleep aid Corbin was taking. The drug has a well documented side effect of sleep-driving, possibly explaining the inconsistency between the actual accident and what Corbin reported.
"I haven't seen anything that would cause me to believe that he (Corbin) did anything that he wasn't supposed to do," Thomas says.
But Thomas says an accident occurred that an officer was at fault in and that has to be dealt with.
Thomas says if they find one of their officers was at fault in an accident it is handled through disciplinary action.
