08/22/2007

MADD honors deputy despite past charges

By VICTOR SKINNER

vskinner@record-eagle.com

Revnell

TRAVERSE CITY — Justin Revnell, Mothers Against Drunk Driving salutes you.

MADD's state chapter recently commended Revnell, a Grand Traverse County sheriff's deputy, as part of its SALUTE Michigan Law Enforcement program "that encourages agencies to prioritize drunk driving arrests.”

Revnell, nephew of Grand Traverse County Sheriff Scott Fewins, was charged with domestic violence after an alleged drunken altercation with a live-in girlfriend in late 2004.

The alleged victim said Revnell was intoxicated when he drove home from a Garfield Township tavern on Dec. 30, 2004, and assaulted her during an argument. State police who responded hours after Revnell arrived home conducted a test that registered his blood-alcohol level at .08, the level considered drunk in Michigan.

Prosecutors also alleged another alcohol-related incident against Revnell stemming from an earlier encounter with the woman. Charges against Revnell were dropped after prosecutors lost their key witness when the woman disappeared from the area.

Michigan's MADD spokesman, Homer Smith, said he wasn't aware of Revnell's troubles. MADD relies on local police to recommend officers for recognition and doesn't do background checks on those officers, Smith said.

"The only information we collect is the name of the individuals and the number of drunk driving arrests they have made,” Smith said. "We would be concerned if an individual had been convicted of an alcohol offense ... but that is not information we are privy to.”

Fewins said officers with more than 25 drunk driving arrests over the past year received MADD awards. Revnell had 41, Fewins said.

Revnell earned an "insignia bar” from MADD for his efforts.

The MADD presentation to Revnell and three other local officers came on the eve of a federally funded, local law enforcement crackdown on drunken driving. Area agencies participating in the project include the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Department and Michigan State Police Traverse City post.

Officers from both agencies had alcohol-related problems over the past year, though none was charged with drunken driving.

Grand Traverse sheriff's officials continue to investigate deputy Gregory Scott McManemy, who was stopped in June for alleged drunken driving at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Leelanau County.

McManemy, 43, had been drinking and driving erratically when park rangers stopped his vehicle on M-22, but he was deemed under the legal limit after a second blood-alcohol test at the Grand Traverse County Jail nearly two hours later.

He was not charged with an alcohol-related offense and is back on road patrol while sheriff's officials wait for arrest reports from the Park Service.

Revnell and McManemy could participate — but are not expected to — in the statewide drunk driving crackdown, Fewins said.

State police trooper David Meder was transferred from Traverse City to South Haven, a tourist community on Michigan's southwest lakeshore, and suspended from duty for 10 days after he crashed his off-duty vehicle into a telephone pole on Peninsula Drive in May 2006.

Witnesses said Meder, who had a previous drunken driving conviction after an incident in the mid-1990s, had been drinking heavily at Brady's Bar in Traverse City before the crash.

Meder fled the crash scene on foot, reported his vehicle stolen to his insurance company, then retracting that statement days later.

Meder was sentenced to six months probation and ordered to pay more than $6,000 in restitution for two misdemeanors for failing to report the crash.

He was not charged with an alcohol-related offense.