Warrant dropped against former Hot Springs police chief

Former Hot Springs Police Chief Tim Coleman appeared in court Aug. 26, after a bench warrant had been issued for him two weeks previously.

Coleman’s attorney said that his client was not aware that he was due in court or that a warrant had been issued for him until he read it in the paper.

Coleman pled not guilty to the charges against him. Coleman is facing charges of official misconduct, a misdemeanor, stemming from an incident that happened on July 27, 2007.

On that date Coleman reportedly responded to a call of an intoxicated male with a weapon and who had possibly committed an assualt. While responding to the call, Coleman allegedly seized a .22 caliber rifle belonging to Mike Schendel, after a witness at the scene, Jeremy Cork, gave it to him. When interviewed by Sanders County Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Dryden, Coleman reportedly said that he had taken the rifle and sent it to his brother’s residence in Kalispell along with some of his other possessions.

Coleman did return the rifle to the Hot Springs Police Department on June 12, 2008, almost one year after he first received it. Before then, the prosecutors allege that the rifle was not logged as evidence or taken to the police department.

Coleman resigned from his position this past April amid the investigation into his misconduct. At that time, no information was given into why he was being investigate because town attorney Mark Russell said that since Coleman was not an elected official, his right to privacy outweighed the public’s right to know.

Coleman was appointed police chief in September 2006 and became Hot Spring’s fourth police chief since they went to a one-person force.