LOGAN — An attorney has been charged with battery of a police officer and obstructing an officer after he allegedly backhanded a deputy after an accident.
Jeffrey Scott Simpkins, an attorney in Mingo County, was accused of slapping the officer after the two-vehicle crash that occurred on Logan Boulevard on March 28.
A deputy responded to the scene of the crash to assist Logan Police officers because there were reports of a man with a firearm, WSAZ reported.
Several news agencies reported that the officers and deputy said in the complaint that Simpkins approached the officers and the other man involved in the accident and a deputy stepped between Simpkins and the other man to separate them, telling Simpkins to return to his vehicle.
Simpkins refused to go back to his vehicle and was pointing and cursing at the man who was detained and he then backhand-slapped the deputy in the chest, the complaint stated.
The other man had already been detained by officers for behaving in an "aggressive manner," according to the complaint.
When the deputy warned Simpkins not to slap him again or he would go to jail, the complaint says Simpkins stated, "I’m a lawyer, I know what obstructing is," and went back to his vehicle to wait for emergency services to arrive.