LOGAN, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Logan Police say a man was arrested three times over the course of three days for suspicion of driving under the influence. The attorney for a victim who was badly injured in a separate incident says the man should face a fourth accusation.
Logan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Curtis said 31-year-old Daniel Kropf was involved in a crash at the Maverik convenience store on 1190 South Main Street.
According to the victim's attorney, Kropf was pulling a trailer with a 1-ton pick up truck late Sunday night when he crossed too close to a garbage dumpster, pulling it into the outside wall of the store.
Joesph White's attorney Dustin Lance told ABC 4 that his client was emptying trash from the store at the time, and was pinned between the dumpter and the trailer pulled by Kropf's truck.
Lance said Kropf tried to leave the scene, but the trailer was stuck, so he backed up a number of times until store employees stood in front of the truck to get him to stop.
Lance said White received multiple injuries, including a broken foot, broken ankle, broken ribs, contusions, a punctured lung, internal bleeding and some head trauma, among other scrapes and bruises.
White was taken to Logan Regional Hospital and later transported to Intermountain Medical Center, where he remained in a shock trauma unit on Friday.
Lance said the officer who responded filled out a report, but did not suspect Kropf of driving under the influence and allowed him to leave. Lance said store employees thought Kropf was not coherent at the time of the crash.
"How could someone be allowed to drive away after doing what they did to you?" asked ABC 4's Noah Bond. "I find it a bit odd that he was busted with a DUI 45 minutes after," replied Joseph White.
"He watched all of that and then the judge made the comment that in Utah your proven innocent, or your proven innocent until proven guilty and my thought was my heck, you are a judge...that was disgusting. He watched Kropf while he as watching that. He thought it was funny. He was sitting there laughing," said Joseph's father, Randy White.
Baird said his office was aware of the incident involving Joseph White, but that he was waiting for a report from Logan Police into the matter, and that the incident was not part of the county attorney's investigation.
Curtis said the officer who made the report at the Maverik store had been taking a few days off, so the departmental investigation wold be forthcoming.
Court records show Kropf has no previous DUI charges.
Joesph White in the hospital a few hours later in that same night, Curtis said Kropf was arrested for suspicion of a DUI by a Cache County Sheriff's deputy.
He made bail and was released before being picked up on suspicion of another DUI on Monday evening (July 9) by Logan officers.
Curtis said Kropf made bail again and was picked up a third time for suspicion of a DUI on Tuesday evening (July 10) by Logan officers.
This time, Kropf was held without bail, as prosecutors considered felony charges against him.
Curtis said the nature of the DUI suspicion was that Kropf was under the influence of some sort of prescription medication.
Meanwhile, Lance wants police and prosecutors to investigate the incident involving Joseph White as a DUI as well.
Curtis said the officer who responded to the scene of the Maverik incident is veteran of the Logan force and well-versed in detecting DUI incidents.
Cache County prosecutor Tony Baird told ABC 4 News that Kropf's first two arrests were misdemeanors, but that the third arrest alerted the officers who were involved, seeing the pattern.
Because of the frequency and rapid pattern of Kropf's arrests, Baird said his office was considering felony charges against him, and asked the court to hold Kropf without bail, which the court granted.
