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Sheriff's Deputy Relieved of Duty As Deadly Crash Investigation Widens

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Release Date: June 30, 2008

Alvin Dortch

A Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy has been relieved of duty with pay as investigators question the facts of a weekend traffic crash that killed a Memphis man.

"Deputy Alvin Dortch of the Metro D. U. I. Squad was immediately relieved of duty Sunday evening after our investigators discovered discrepancies in his version of the crash that killed a suspected impaired driver," said Shelby County Sheriff Mark H. Luttrell, Jr.

The discrepancies were discovered after Sheriff's investigators reviewed video from the dash camera in Dortch's squad car. 

Early Sunday morning just after midnight, Deputy Dortch reported he was parked on the east-bound lane of I-240 near Warford.  He said he had just concluded a traffic stop on a suspected impaired driver when a pick up truck driven by Ignacio Arcos, 23, of Memphis, sped past his squad car.  

Dortch called Sheriff's Office dispatchers and said Arcos's truck was weaving between lanes.  Dortch said he attempted to follow the truck but lost sight of the vehicle.

Dortch told Sheriff's Traffic Investigators he discovered the truck moments later upside down on the exit ramp to go south on Jackson Avenue.  Arcos was dead at the scene.  No one else was inside the truck.

An autopsy will be conducted to see how Arcos died and whether he was under the influence of alcohol or other drugs at the time of the crash.

Dortch has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1982.

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