After disobeying a Valley Brook police officer’s orders and getting arrested following a strip club fight in September, Edmond police officer Dustin Hand’s driver’s license was suspended for 180 days. As part of a plea agreement, Hand paid Valley Brook Municipal Court $1,570 in administrative costs, and the charges were ultimately dropped.
Police records allege that Hand started a fight around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, with an employee of Deja Vu, an after-hours and all-nude strip club on Southeast 59th Street. The club’s manager called police and reported that Hand had allegedly pushed another patron during a confrontation.
Valley Brook police officer Jeremy Mashore responded to the scene and found Hand with “a great amount of a red stain consistent with blood amongst his clothing,” Mashore wrote in the first of two offense reports he filed that night about Hand. Mashore wrote that Hand, who said he’d had drinks that night and was a “three” on a zero-to-10 intoxication scale, admitted to making the first physical contact with the other party, club employee Michael Butts, who responded by punching Hand. Butts ultimately said he did not want to pursue charges, and the parties dispersed, according to the report.
Despite receiving explicit instructions from Mashore to find an alternate ride home, Hand got into his car anyway and began driving through the parking lot, which led Mashore to arrest the off-duty Edmond officer for actual physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence and for possession of a firearm while intoxicated, according to Mashore’s second offense report.
“I was [astounded] a law enforcement officer, after having been given such a large break from the fight incident, to which he had indicated he pushed another individual first, admitted he had been drinking, agreed to get a ride to go home, (and) was now in actual physical control of a motor vehicle,” Mashore wrote.
A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office said documents related to Hand’s arrest were not provided by Valley Brook.
In October, Hand filed a civil lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety to overturn the 180-day suspension. A hearing on the issue was set for Nov. 28, 2022, but ultimately, Hand’s attorney, Stephen Fabian, withdrew the cause for action — dismissing the case.
Fabian declined to comment on Hand’s arrest or the subsequent lawsuit.
Valley Brook Police Capt. Darren Johnson said no mugshot is available from Hand’s September arrest, as the Valley Brook Police Department did not have a working camera in the booking area at that time. Today, Hand remains an employed officer with the Edmond Police Department.
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Asked if the Edmond Police Department investigated the incident, Emily Ward, EPD’s public information specialist, provided a brief statement.
“The Edmond Police Department conducted a personnel investigation in regard to a reported incident in Valley Brook (…) involving Edmond Police Officer Dustin Hand,” Ward said. “The personnel investigation and related outcomes are components of the employee’s personnel file. At no time did Officer Hand perform duties as an Edmond Police Officer without a valid driver’s license.”
The city of Edmond recently paid an attorney more than $213,000 to investigate allegations of racism, sexism and bullying against an EPD deputy chief. Department and city officials have refused to discuss the findings of the investigation — which involved interviewing numerous EPD employees about the department’s culture — but city manager Scot Rigby has said the city plans “to improve our training in certain areas.”
South of SE 59th Street and east of Interstate 235 within Oklahoma City, Valley Brook is a small town best known for its strip clubs. The town covers about 0.3 square miles and has a population of about 665 people, according to the 2020 decennial census.
‘I had the impression he was telling me the truth’
About 2:30 a.m. Sept. 28, Mashore received a call from Ronald Curis Hayes, the manager of Deja Vu, indicating a fight had occurred. Upon arrival, Mashore found Hand near the front doors of the building, wiping blood from his face, according to the offense report. The offense notes that Hand “did not desire nor did he want an ambulance to respond to the incident.”
Hayes indicated to Mashore that Hand believed a group of clubgoers had been arguing and that Hand had walked over to prevent the argument from escalating, according to the report. However, the individuals apparently were friends and were not attempting to fight. According to the offense report, individuals in the group were employees of the club, but they were not working at the time.
Hand then returned to his seat before observing what he believed was an additional argument among the group, the offense report states.
Hand told the other person to stop or else they would be thrown out of the club, which sparked a confrontation between Hand, Butts and other members of the group, according to the report.
Butts allegedly asked Hand, “What are you going to do about it?” Hand told the Valley Brook officer that he then pushed the individual, causing a fight to break out.
“Mr. Hand was struck multiple times, yet the fight ended shortly after,” the first offense report states.
Butts, 22, told Mashore he struck Hand out of self-defense. Mashore asked Hayes, the club manager, to show him a video of the incident, but “it was highly difficult to see or determine anything based on the angle, view and area,” the report states.
Mashore asked Hand to relay what events had occurred prior to Mashore’s arrival. The report notes that Hand was not under arrest nor detained at this point.
“As Mr. Hand stated he was a law enforcement officer, I had the impression he was telling me the truth regarding the incident,” Mashore wrote. “However, upon inquiry, Mr. Hand began conversing the events, yet it seemed he was leaving some portions out.”
Hand then told Mashore that he made first physical contact with the other party by pushing Butts, the reports states. Mashore wrote that he and Hand “discussed the law of battery,” and Butts indicated he did not want to press charges.
“Therefore, I advised Mr. Hand no charges would be filed against him at that time, and asked him to get a ride to take him home, one for safety, and two so he would not be drinking and driving,” Mashore wrote.
Hand agreed, the report states, and Mashore returned to the Valley Brook Police Department, which is located only a few hundred feet east of Deja Vu and its neighboring strip club, Little Darlings.
Mashore: ‘Desired for Mr. Hand to prove my suspicions wrong’
Soon thereafter, at approximately 3:35 a.m., Mashore was standing in the Valley Brook PD parking lot, and he observed a gray Dodge in the Deja Vu parking lot, according to his second offense report. Mashore observed Hand walking toward the Deja Vu parking lot. No other cars were arriving to pick him up, the report states, causing Mashore to enter his patrol car and drive back to Deja Vu.
Upon approaching the Deja Vu parking lot, Mashore saw the Dodge driving northbound within the parking lot, writing that it “nearly drove over the curb into the 1500 block of Southeast 59th Street.”
“Upon driving closer, I observed the operator placed the vehicle in reverse, stopped, began driving forward to Plaza Mayor Street, then stopped, and began backing into two parking spaces at the same time, to which the operator then re-parked the motor vehicle in the Little Darling Entertainment Establishment parking lot,” the second report states.
After activating his lights and getting out of his patrol car, Mashore observed Hand as the driver.
“I exited my patrol car, approached the vehicle, and questioned Mr. Hand as to why he would be operating the vehicle if he had already been asked to get a ride home, then began operating a vehicle himself,” the report states. “Yet, the only answer he could rationally provide was the mere fact he was parking the vehicle, although it was previously already parked before he began operating prior to the arrival of a sober person to drive him home.”
Mashore then requested that Hand participate in three standardized field sobriety tests: the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the walk-and-turn test and the one-leg-stand test, according to the offense report.
In the report, Mashore notes that Hand showed five out of six possible clues of intoxication in both eyes during the horizontal gaze nystagmus, one clue out of eight in the walk-and-turn test, and one clue out of four during the one-leg-stand test.
“Based on my training and experience of DWI detection and standardized field sobriety tests, adept with advanced roadside impaired driving enforcement (ARIDE), and drug recognition expert training, it is my opinion as a nationally certified drug recognition expert that Mr. Hand had some type of intoxicant within his body, and was not safe to be in actual physical control of a motor vehicle,” Mashore wrote in the report.
Mashore then placed Hand under arrest and notified Valley Brook Police Chief Michael Stamp and Capt. Darren Johnson of the incident, the report states. Mashore also contacted Edmond police Capt. Tom Evans regarding the incident, according to the report.
After requesting a towing service to retrieve Hand’s vehicle, Mashore completed a vehicle-impound inventory of the car, where he a found a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun in Hand’s glove box with a fully loaded magazine, according to the report. A round was not in the chamber.
After Hand’s car was retrieved, Mashore transported Hand next door to the Valley Brook Police Department for processing, the report states.
“Upon arrival, truthfully, I [wanted] and desired for Mr. Hand to prove my suspicions wrong,” Mashore wrote. “First, I requested he submit to a portable breath test or PBT. Mr. Hand refused stating he did not think it was necessary. Therefore, I read Mr. Hand the implied consent test request or states test, and again he refused to submit to the states test. Following, I processed and secured Mr. Hand in a holding cell at the department.”
Read the Valley Brook Police Department’s offense reports
https://nondoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Valley-Brook-offense-report-1.pdf” viewer=”google”] https://nondoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Valley-Brook-PD-offense-report-2_Redacted.pdf” viewer=”google”]
