Key West Police release bodycam video of police chief accused of beating homeless man

The Boston Heights police chief was arrested Friday in Florida.

According to a police report, 40-year-old Chad McArdle was arrested by the Key West Police Department and charged with battery, a misdemeanor, in the early hours of Friday morning.

According to the report, at about 1 a.m., a taxi driver reported that a man without a shirt was banging on the cab’s door and asking the driver to call 911.

The taxi driver told police the man said some people wanted to kill him and that he had been stabbed in the face and chest. The taxi driver also told police, the victim was laying on the sidewalk and crying.

Officers found the man, later identified as McArdle, standing without shoes on a street corner where he “was stressed out and appeared lost,” according to the report. However, officers note, they could not locate any stab wounds on McArdle, only several minor scratches.

McArdle told police, he was pushed and dragged into a vehicle from outside a nearby bar by two unknown men. McArdle then described the men but was unable to give a vehicle description, according to the report.

McArdle told police that when he was inside the vehicle, one of the suspects stabbed him several times in the face and chest with a stick. According to the report, McArdle could not describe the stick, or which of the two men stabbed him.

McArdle went on to say he was able to grab the stick from the suspect and stabbed one of the men in the throat with the stick.

McArdle told police the man was probably dead now, according to the report.

McArdle was then allegedly dragged by the two men from the vehicle to a nearby alley, where McArdle told police he continued to fight with them.

According to the police report, “There was no blood on McArdle’s hands or anywhere on his body. McArdle’s statements continued to contradict each other.”

Paramedics then arrived on the scene. They also could not find any wounds on McArdle’s body, and McArdle refused to go to the hospital, according to the report.

Officers reviewed security camera footage from the nearby bar. According to the report, officers were unable to find any footage to confirm McArdle’s statements.

In the alley, officers spoke to a homeless man, who told police he was beaten up by a man he later identified as McArdle. The homeless man told police, he was standing in the alley and was kicked in the back. According to the report, the victim then fell to the ground and was kicked in the back several more times.

McArdle was arrested and charged with battery.