MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The man arrested after a fight with an off-duty police officer said the officer’s account of what happened in the affidavit wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
“No, no, no, no. No, sir. I did not spit on that lady,” Arthur “Wayne” Jones said.
Jones wanted to set the record straight on his fight with the off-duty female cop.
“Yeah, it was wrong,” Jones said. “Of course, it was wrong. But I swear, I didn’t know it was a driveway.”
The drama started over a blocked driveway on Madison Avenue on Saturday.
Off-duty officer Deborah Birdsong was trying to pull out of the driveway near Wizards and got into an argument with Jones.
“I called her a few bad words, and then she called me a few bad words,” Jones said.
T.A. Robertson, who sells the Bridges newspapers in Midtown, said he witnessed the entire altercation.
“She’s like you call me another ‘B’ and I’m going to kick your –. So he called her another one. She jumped out, and she whooped him, and they went to fighting in the middle of the street,” Robertson explained.
“When she slapped me in my face and busted my lip, that’s when I hit her,” Jones said.
However, police claimed Jones threw the first punch and charged him with assault.
Robertson’s statement and other witness accounts were not included in the affidavit despite claims of speaking with Sgt. R. Birdsong, the off-duty officer’s husband.
Witnesses said Sgt. Birdsong demanded they leave the scene.
“They only got to the bottom of one side — her side,” Jones said. “They didn’t get to my side. Thank God we have the news. Without y’all people wouldn’t get to hear my side of the story.”
Investigators from the Internal Affairs Bureau/Security Squad made the scene and conducted an investigation.
The officer has not been relieved of duty.
Jones said he has been mistreated and plans to file a formal complaint with the IAB.