Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Detective Ardit Coma has had criminal charges against him dropped following a recent speeding and fleeing/eluding incident in Volusia County. Coma was initially accused of traveling at 88 miles an hour in a 55 zone, and then fleeing law enforcement when they tried to pull him over.
Coma was charged with fleeing or eluding a law enforcement, a third degree felony. The FCSO immediately suspended him without pay, in accordance with agency policy. Now, Coma is back to work following the decision by the State Attorney’s Office not to prosecute.
Flagler Sheriff Rick Staly, Coma’s boss, went as far as to cast doubt on the judgment of the Ormond Beach Police Department for arresting Coma. “I personally reviewed the arrest report and was surprised that an arrest was made based on the lack of evidence showing he was intentionally trying to flee, while driving an agency vehicle,” he said in a written statement.
Still, Staly maintained that Coma will be the subject of an internal investigation for the incident. “Although the criminal charge was dismissed, the facts appear clear that Detective Coma was speeding in an agency vehicle,” he continued. “I believe in accountability for everyone in our agency and transparency with our community, and our internal investigation will determine what policies were violated, and he will be held accountable. In fact, he will likely be held accountable to a higher standard than an average driver committing a traffic infraction.”
Furthermore, Staly remarked that, in his opinion, the decision by the State Attorney’s Office not to prosecute was consistent with the evidence available. His assessment addresses the elephant in the room: the optics of a law enforcement officer being accused of a felony and having the charges swiftly dropped by a constitutional office which closely works alongside theirs.
At the time of the arrest, Coma claimed that he was not aware of the Ormond Beach Police sergeant trying to pull him over. He was said to have weaved through traffic and driven around stop sticks that’d been deployed to try and disable his vehicle. While he’s under investigation, Coma will be working in an administrative non-law enforcement capacity, the FCSO says.
I think it should be stated that after he drove around those stop sticks he stopped to see if he could help in the apprehension of whoever they were trying to stop, albeit unbeknownst to him it was him they were pursuing. I did some dumb stuff at his age and he should be held accountable, but not fired. Let’s just call it a “teachable moment.”