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Deputy suspended, charged with battery
By JAMIE MALERNEE © St. Petersburg Times, published April 17, 2001 A sheriff's deputy faces battery charges after authorities say he pushed his wife, bit a friend and threatened suicide in a drunken rage. Deputy Chandler T. Cole, 31, a member of the agency's traffic enforcement unit, was arrested Friday night and has been suspended with pay from the force until an internal investigation is complete. His wife has an emergency restraining order against him that states Cole has a drinking problem and has been violent before. According to a sheriff's report, Cole went to a party at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge and got extremely drunk Friday night. As he and his wife were being driven home by a friend, the couple argued. Both his wife, Denise Cole, and the friend, sheriff's dispatcher Jessica Jernigan, told officials that Chandler Cole suddenly got a strange, blank look in his eye. Jernigan then reached over to him, while he was sitting turned around in the passenger seat and yelling at his wife. Jernigan tried to get him to sit forward and stop fighting. That's when Cole bit Jernigan's hand, officials said. Cole's wife then yelled at him to "stop acting like a jerk," but he reached into the back seat and pushed her in the face three times, the report said. He then told his wife that he knew she hated him and that he was going to commit suicide because he loved her so much. He said that he would shoot himself the next morning and that their two daughters would miss him, the report said. Then he punched the windshield of the sport utility vehicle, shattering the glass, and opened his door and jumped from the moving vehicle. Jernigan stopped the SUV, got out and tried to talk to Cole. He told her to stay away from him. Meanwhile, his wife ran to a relative's house and called the Sheriff's Office. Deputies came and arrested Cole, who faces two counts of battery. He was taken to the Hernando County Jail and released the next morning on $500 bail. While Cole was in custody, authorities removed several guns from his home, and Cole's wife obtained an emergency restraining order against him. In the order, she requested that Cole be banned from their home and her workplace and forbidden to have any contact with her. She said she would be willing to allow him supervised visits with their daughters. She also checked boxes on the form that stated "Respondent has an alcohol problem" and reported that their children "were not there when the domestic violence happened this time but have seen previous acts of domestic violence by the respondent." She requested that he get treatment and counseling. In the order, she indicated that Cole has no history of mental illness, was not on any medication Friday night and has never been taken into protective custody for mental problems. She did not return calls for comment Monday. Cole could not be reached for comment. Sheriff's Lt. Joe Paez said that the agency had never been called out to the Cole home or anywhere else regarding violence or any other problems. Cole's personnel file shows he has a spotless record. He joined the agency in 1997 and at the time of his arrest worked as part of the motorcycle team of traffic enforcement officers. He had all positive evaluations and several letters of commendation and appreciation in his file. He makes $26,300 a year. "He was a good officer. He is a good officer," Paez said. Before joining the Sheriff's Office, records show that Cole was a farmer. In 1993, he was charged with possession of a firearm on a state trail after he and three other men were found armed on the Withlacoochee State Trail. He pleaded no contest in court, and Judge Peyton Hyslop dismissed the case, records state.
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