The Boston Heights Police Chief was arrested in Key West, Fla., early Friday morning for allegedly attacking a homeless man “for no apparent reason,” according to Key West Police and jail records.
Officers responded to Southard and Duval streets, where the Chief of Police of Boston Heights, 40-year-old Chad McArdle, stated to officers that he was pushed and dragged into a vehicle outside a bar on Duval Street by two unknown men, according to the police report.
He said that when he was inside the vehicle, one of the men stabbed him in the face and chest with a stick. He said he grabbed the stick from his attacker and stabbed him in the throat with it and that the man "was probably dead now." He said the men then dragged him from the vehicle into the alley, and he kept fighting the men in the alley.
"McArdle was not able to describe what happened next," the police report stated.
McArdle was unable to give officers an accurate description of the location of the attack, and he changed his story multiple times, police said. He also gave conflicting descriptions of the alleged attackers and did not have any injuries consistent with being stabbed.
Police checked footage from the nearby bar but did not find any footage confirming McArdle's statements.
During the investigation, Key West Police officers located a local homeless man lying on the ground in the alleyway nearby. He told officers he was standing in the alley when he was kicked in the back by an unknown man. The homeless man fell to the ground, and the unknown man then kicked him in the back several times.
Police walked the homeless man over to McArdle, and he positively identified McArdle as the person “who the subject attacked and battered in an alleyway for no apparent reason,” police said. The homeless man told police he wanted to press charges. Paramedics provided medical assistance to him.
The police report reiterated that they could find no evidence that proved McArdle's statements.
McArdle was arrested at about 3 a.m., booked into the Monroe County Jail and was charged with one misdemeanor count of battery, jail records show. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Aug. 17 at 9 a.m.
On Tuesday, Boston Heights city officials said they had no comment other than to confirm that McArdle was placed on paid administrative leave until his hearing on Aug. 17.
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