West Des Moines Police Take Suspects to Jail – Literally Biting, Kicking and Screaming

It was a rough week for a couple of West Des Moines police officers who allegedly were assaulted while performing their duties.

In the first instance, a 21-year-old West Des Moines woman reportedly fought, pushed and attempted to head-butt Officer Stephen Becker after her girlfriend summoned police because she was “highly intoxicated” and destroying the apartment they shared.

The girlfriend had locked herself in the bathroom about 3 o’clock Saturday morning to call police. When Becker arrived, the woman in the bathroom said the two had argued over her girlfriend’s state of intoxication.

Police thought the situation was under control and left, but the woman called again and said her girlfriend was “breaking items in the apartment again,” according to Becker’s report. This time the caller had locked herself in the bedroom and told police her girlfriend tried to gain entry, yelling, “I’m going to jail either way, unlock the door.”

The suspect wanted Becker and Officer Jeremy Kemmer to take her to Jefferson County, about 120 miles away in southeast Iowa, where her brother reportedly is a deputy.

Becker said that wasn’t an option and she “looked at her phone for a second, and then … threw the phone, got up from the chair and knocked the flat screen TV off the stand", and then charged the officers, his report said. 

The woman was charged with assaulting a police officer and taken to the Polk County Jail.

Two days later, a woman reportedly kicked and bit Officer Matthew McCarty, who was working as an off-duty officer at a concert at the Val Air Ballroom.

McCarty had been asked by private security officers to help them control the allegedly intoxicated woman.

“I began escorting her out and she kicked me in the inside of my upper left thigh and was … taken to the ground, handcuffed and advised her arrest,” McCarty wrote in his report. “The woman refused to stand up to walk out to the waiting patrol car. ... While she was being carried, she bit McCarty in the left upper thigh."

The suspect was charged with public intoxication and assaulting a police officer. She was booked at the Polk County Jail.