Officer facing charges was disciplined earlier

Friday, April 11, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.

A Metro Police sergeant who was arrested Jan. 26 for allegedly being drunk when he crashed a department vehicle previously had been disciplined for not reporting that a kilo of cocaine was missing from the police evidence locker, according to Sun and police records.

The latest trouble for 41-year-old David E. Logue, a narcotics officer, stems from an accident he had at about 10 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday. According to the police report, Patrol Officer Petra Ziros drove up on Logue on Hacienda Avenue west of Decatur Boulevard. Logue was trying to remove a construction barrier from under his department-issued 2001 Ford Expedition, which had fresh damage under the front right portion of the sport utility vehicle, according to the police reports.

The officer said Logue smelled, looked and acted like he was drunk, and when she asked him if he had been drinking he told her, "Yes, four beers," according to the report.

A traffic supervisor, Sgt. J. Hines, was called to the scene and Logue's story apparently changed.

"Logue told me he had six beers at the Tail Spin Tavern between" 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., Hines wrote in the arrest report.

Three beer bottles were found in the SUV, the police report noted.

Logue failed a field sobriety test and two subsequent breathalyzer tests found his blood-alcohol level was about 0.18 percent, according to the accident report. It is illegal to drive in Nevada with a blood-alcohol level of more than 0.10 percent.

Logue was booked into jail and charged with DUI involving an accident, and an internal affairs investigation was launched. The criminal case is pending against Logue. The case is expected to be handled by someone other than Logue's ex-wife, Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver, officials said.

According to Department of Motor Vehicle records, Logue's driver's license was suspended or revoked after the arrest, but he was issued a temporary license Jan. 31 while appealing the decision. Metro's internal investigation led to a suspension for Logue, but Metro spokesman Jose Montoya said the date and length of the suspension are part of Internal Affairs files and not available to the public.

In similar cases, some officers have received 120-hour suspensions.

Logue's previous run-in with his employers happened in 1996, when he and three other narcotics officers were disciplined by the department because they knew -- but hadn't reported to their supervisor -- that a kilo of cocaine, worth an estimated $100,000, had been checked out by a fellow narcotics officer and had never been returned to the evidence locker, according to stories in the Sun archives.