Police officer gets four years probation over incident at jail

BOONEVILLE — A former Paris police officer was sentenced in connection with kneeing a jail inmate in the face last year.

Christopher Munoz Brownlow, 33, of Clarksville was sentenced to four years probation Friday in Logan County Circuit Court after entering a negotiated guilty plea to one charge of second-degree battery, a class D felony, according to court records.

Brownlow was also ordered to pay a $1,500 fine and surrender his law enforcement certification.

The lawyer representing Brownlow, Russell Wood of the Wood Law Firm in Russellville, said Tuesday Brownlow is happy to put this “unfortunate incident” behind him, and looks forward to completing his probation and seeking expungement.

Brownlow was charged with second-degree battery Feb. 19. He was arrested by Arkansas State Police and was released from jail on a $5,000 bond.

A probable-cause affidavit states Brownlow was dropping off inmates at the Logan County jail on Sept. 14, 2019 when a man in a cell became “irate,” yelling and kicking the door. A detention officer asked the inmate be put “in the chair,” with Brownlow going to the man’s cell with another officer.

The other officer told investigators the man calmed down and was lying on his cot by the time he and Brownlow arrived.

After Brownlow went into the cell, he told the inmate he needed to stand up and he was going to be cuffed and put in the chair, according to the affidavit. The inmate said he was going to calm down, after which Brownlow kneed the man in the left side of his face “in a diving motion.” The other officer told investigators he didn’t ask Brownlow to enter the man’s cell.

Arkansas State Police interviewed the inmate, who was taken to a hospital in Paris and then to UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock. He had multiple fractures around his eye and another in his jaw, and had to have surgery to insert a titanium plate and screws in his face, according to the affidavit.

Paris Police Chief John O’Brien said he received word on the morning of Sept. 15 of the incident. He placed Brownlow on administrative leave. He then contacted Prosecutor Tom Tatum II and requested Arkansas State Police investigate the incident.

O’Brien said he fired Brownlow on Jan. 6 after several months of waiting and “not hearing anything one way or the other.”

Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training records show prior to his dismissal Brownlow had been a full-time patrolman in the Paris Police Department since April 8, 2019. Brownlow has also worked for the Pope County and Johnson County sheriff’s offices during his career.

Brownlow entered a not guilty plea to his second-degree battery charge in a waiver of arraignment filed March 11 by Wood.