CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y (WKBW) \u2014 An off-duty Erie jail deputy facing a DWI charge after a head-on crash in Cheektowaga that left another driver hospitalized, had two prior local law enforcement encounters, records show.<\/p>\n
Christopher Imhof, 35, was arrested on the night of Aug. 21 after Cheektowaga police say he was involved in a head-on collision on French Road. Both Imhof and the driver of the other vehicle were hospitalized. Imhof has since been released. The other victim remains in a hospital in serious condition.<\/p>\n
Imhof has so far been issued an appearance ticket for driving while intoxicated, but Cheektowaga police say more serious charges are likely.<\/p>\n
The Erie County Sheriff’s Office says Imhof remains on administrative leave while an internal investigation is underway.<\/p>\n
Records show two prior encounters with law enforcement before the Aug. 21 arrest.<\/p>\n
WATCH: Off-duty Erie jail deputy facing DWI charge after head-on crash, two prior law enforcement encounters<\/p>\n
Off-duty Erie jail deputy facing DWI charge after head-on crash<\/p>\n
On July 31, 2020, Imhof was involved in an accident in the town of West Seneca. An accident report shows that just before 4 a.m., town officers stopped Imhof after he allegedly hit a light pole, some garbage totes and a mailbox along a roughly half-mile route in a West Seneca neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Security video obtained by 7 News shows part of that incident.<\/p>\n
According to the accident report, Imhof told officers he had “suffered from a medical condition in one of his legs which was injured overseas during military service” and lost control of his vehicle. His truck was towed and an officer gave him a ride home. He was not charged or ticketed in that incident.<\/p>\n
Then on July 1 of this year, Imhof was accused of violating an order of protection in North Tonawanda. He was arrested on a misdemeanor count of criminal contempt in the second degree.<\/p>\n
I reached out to an attorney representing Imhof for comment.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y (WKBW) \u2014 An off-duty Erie jail deputy facing a DWI charge after a head-on crash in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-272865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}