A Binghamton police captain gave “Police Watch” new meaning when he was arrested last Sunday in an odd DWI case.

Captain John Shea, who managed the department’s Detective Division, was involved in a one-car, one-tree accident while driving a city vehicle in front of 1147 Vestal Ave. at around 4:30 p.m., according to an email from Chief of Police Joseph Zikuski to Pipe Dream.

Zikuski also said Shea was off-duty at the time of the accident. He was charged with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated and has been placed on leave without pay.

Shea’s car struck a tree, and according to a report published by WBNG News, the captain allegedly tried to flee the scene of the accident and requested that witnesses refrain from contacting the authorities. But a neighbor had already dialed 911.

According to witnesses, Shea’s car was positioned on top of a tree in their front yard. When they asked him if he wanted help, Shea declined assistance, and tried to remove the tree his car was sitting on top of, WBNG reported.

Zikuski said Shea was arrested at the scene and will be arraigned later this month.

The Ithaca Journal reported that Shea had become head of the Binghamton Police Bureau’s detective division in 2010.

The Binghamton Police Department’s website states that Shea was in charge of five sub-divisions within the detectives department, including the investigators unit, identification unit, juvenile division, special investigations and the warrant division.

Kevin Wright, a criminologist and a Binghamton University professor of human development, said that alcohol abuse is not uncommon in the law enforcement profession.

“Being a police officer is really stressful,” Wright said. “Police officers have higher rates of alcohol abuse than any other profession related to stress.”

A clerk from the Vestal Town Court, who asked to remain anonymous, said a variety of things can occur when convicting a first-offense DWI, as they are handled on a case-by-case basis.

“It depends on refusal, [if there’s a] breath test, if you’re convicted of a misdemeanor or not,” the source said. “If it’s your first DWI, you typically get a one-year conditional discharge, a minimum fine and surcharge, or a session of crime victim’s impact panel, and sometimes you get a IID [Ignition Interlock Device] installed in your car.”

According to the source, conditional discharge means the individual must stay out of trouble for at least one year. The source added that when it comes to legal punishment, a law enforcement individual charged with a DWI should not be treated any differently than the average citizen.

Wright speculated about whether it was in the community’s best interest to entirely dismiss Shea of his duties.

“If you think about it, by the time they train and educate an officer, they have a lot of money invested in this person,” Wright said. “I think it’s in the department’s best interest, as well as the taxpayer’s, to keep [officers dealing with alcohol abuse] on the police force with the expectation that they will get assistance with alcohol abuse. It’s different from other forms of crime — alcoholism is a disease. So yes, he did commit a crime, but it may be related to that disease.”

Kristen Voorhees, a junior majoring in political science, said she thinks the Captain’s actions set a poor example for the constituency he is devoted to serve.

“The fact is that there are so many incidents of students getting arrested for alcohol-related violations that have minimal public impact, such as open containers and underage drinking, but the captain of the police force is putting other people’s lives in danger due to his irresponsibility with alcohol,” Voorhees said.

Henry Aery, a freshman majoring in accounting, found it disappointing that authority figures like Shea fall short in maintaining their responsibility to the community.

“It’s unfortunate that the people we trust to enforce laws concerning our own safety can lose sight of the laws they are upholding while off-duty,” Aery said.

University Police Chief Timothy Faughnan warns students to be aware of the immense risks involved in driving while impaired.

“Generically, the dangers of driving while intoxicated are pretty well known to everyone, which is why we spend a lot of time working with students to educate them, not just because of the penalties involved,” Faughnan said. “But it’s just a very dangerous thing to do — any form of impaired driving — so we do a lot of educating in that regard and a lot of enforcement as well.”