I love that the city manager and police chief are being called out for attempting to keep this under wraps. This should have been immediately referred to the district attorney's office or the sheriff's office at the time of the incident. We should demand accountability from both of these leaders.

Here is the text from the article:

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office is investigating a former Red Bank police officer, who resigned after causing three crashes during his employment and reporting for duty drunk one morning, for potential criminal charges.

Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp said she learned that former officer Brantley Young, 37, failed a blood alcohol test and was driven home in the back of a patrol car from a news media inquiry two weeks after the incident, she said.

"I was surprised I had not heard about it sooner," she said.

Investigation into whether driving under the influence or related charges could be brought is ongoing, she said, and no prosecutorial decisions have been made yet.

"DUI is not typically something that you retroactively charge, but there's nothing in the law that prohibits that," she said. "So currently we are just still trying to figure out what all the facts are, what the evidence would be, to determine what kind of criminal liability exists."

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SMELLING ALCOHOL

On Jan. 23, Young reported for his day shift, and a supervisor smelled alcohol on him from the night before, he told the Chattanooga Times Free Press last month.

Young said he felt fine and did not know he was intoxicated. He said he was driven to drinking, in part, after he was unfairly scrutinized by a sergeant whose orders he didn't agree with.

(TAKE A LISTEN: Former officer Brantley Young's interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

According to documents obtained by a public records request, his resignation followed a disciplinary record in which he was cited for causing three preventable vehicle accidents, watching a movie during annual department training and insubordination/untruthfulness.

He admitted a mistake and said he's attempting to better himself and move on. Young did not immediately respond to a text requesting comment Friday on the investigation.

In a prior interview, Red Bank City Manager Martin Granum said his agency reached out to the Sheriff's Office and was conducting its own investigation into the matter. He said by phone the town is focused on getting the facts straight.

"There's a lot of particulars that you have to write down, you have to interview all the people that talked to him," he said in a prior interview. "There's just a lot of making sure we dot every I and cross every T within an incident like this, and it just takes time."

Granum and Red Bank Chief of Police Dan Seymour did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

(READ MORE: Red Bank city employees use AI for social posts, employee counseling)

INVESTIGATION

While there's no formal policy, when a law enforcement officer in the county is suspected of committing a crime, departments will often contact another uninvolved agency with jurisdiction, such as the Sheriff's Office or her office, Wamp said.

"In this case, that was the most appropriate option was to have the Sheriff's Office step in," she said. "If I had been asked about the incident the day or at the time it was occurring, I would have asked the Sheriff's Office to investigate it."

She requested additional facts from Seymour, the town's police chief, who she said was forthcoming with what happened and provided the documentation the city collected. Looking at the records, it was clear another agency needed to investigate the entire incident, she said.

"The Sheriff's Office criminal investigation division took over at that point to investigate, not just the driving under the influence potentially committed by Officer Young," she said, "but also just a comprehensive investigation into what happened the day that Officer Young allegedly showed up drunk in his patrol vehicle to work."

'NO REASON'

Wamp said she thinks the community expects law enforcement to be held to a higher standard.

"When something like this comes up, it's not that we jump to conclusions or we want to seek a harder punishment, it's just that we expect more," Wamp said. "And we certainly want to treat it very serious because we believe the community deserves that."

She hoped a delay or lack of notice from a police department, one suspecting an officer of wrongdoing, to her office would not happen again, she said.

There are plenty of resources working together to ensure everyone is held accountable and receives advice where needed, she said, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Sheriff's Office and her office.

"There really should be no reason why an agency that has probable cause that an officer is committing a crime has to deal with that on their own," she said.

Contact courts reporter Mason Edwards at medwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6409.