Report: ACC commissioner kicked officer during DUI arrest

District 9 County Commissioner Ovita Thornton

By Joe Johnson

A county commissioner reportedly kicked a police officer when she was being arrested for an alleged alcohol related car wreck.

According to a police report, ACC District 9 Commissioner Ovita Thornton on the evening of Feb. 20 was driving from a restaurant, where she admittedly had something to drink, when her car struck a curb and utility pole near West Hancock Avenue and North Harris Street.

The commissioner’s car was missing a front tire and the wheel’s metal cylinder was bent, according to the report, in which an officer noted that Thornton had an odor of alcohol with slurred speech and ignored or refused to comply with instructions.

When asked if she would submit to sobriety testing, Thornton replied, “No, not today,” and when the officer told her she was under arrest Thornton “actively resisted” attempts to handcuff her, according to the police report.

The report indicated that Thornton resisted attempts to get her to sit in a police car, and when officers physically assisted her into complying, she kicked one of them in the chest as the officer leaned into the vehicle.”

“I advised her to not physically harm me again and we were able to secure her in the back seat and close the door to my patrol car,” the female officer wrote.

Throughout the policer encounter, the commissioner made references to being disrespected by the officers, according to the report, and during the drive to the jail Thornton commented “about how much she had done for the police officers in this county,” and said that she wanted to speak with the police chief and sheriff.

Upon arriving at the jail Thornton reportedly continued to resist authority, and sheriff’s deputies had to forcibly remove her from the police car to get her inside.

In a statement to Classic City News after her arrest, Thornton said that “intoxication was not a factor” in the accident and that she was working with her attorney “to correct the DUI charge.”