MOORHEAD-A Fargo police officer was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of drunken driving near Hawley, according to Clay County Sheriff Bill Bergquist.

Wes Libner, a school resource officer at Fargo South High School, was pulled over on U.S. Highway 10 just after 5 a.m. Saturday, July 2, and was found to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, Bergquist said. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.

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Libner, 43, bailed out of the Clay County Jail, and he’s expected to be charged with a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree driving while intoxicated, Bergquist said.

The sheriff said emergency dispatchers received a complaint that prompted a deputy to stop Libner, who was off-duty and driving his own vehicle.

Phone messages left at the Fargo Police Department for Libner were not returned Tuesday, July 5. It was not clear if he had an attorney.

Chief David Todd said Libner called him about 7:15 a.m. Saturday to say he’d been arrested. “He was very upset and apologetic about it,” Todd said, adding that Libner sent an email to the entire department apologizing for his actions.

Todd said he told Libner there would be consequences for what happened. The chief said the department’s whole range of punishments, including termination, are on the table.

“We’re going to have to hold him accountable after we do the investigation and determine all the facts,” he said.

Todd said he reached out to Bergquist and to the deputy who stopped Libner to apologize for the incident. “I recognize how difficult arresting a fellow officer is under any circumstance,” Todd said. “I feel that the deputy absolutely did the right thing.”

Todd also issued an apology to the entire community, and he noted that school resource officers like Libner are meant to be role models for students. “You’re there in the school to not only develop a relationship with the kids, but to live as examples for the kids,” the chief said. “We let the school down in this situation.”

Libner is back at work, but not at South High. For now, the scope of his duties will likely be limited to inside police headquarters, Todd said.

The last time a Fargo police officer was arrested for drunken driving was in 2007. The officer, Paul Lies, was off-duty at the time, and he received a two-week suspension without pay. Lies has since left the department and is now sheriff of Eddy County, N.D.

If Libner’s convicted of drunken driving, it would not be the first blemish on his driving record.

Before joining the force, he pleaded guilty in 1993 to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence in Cass County, according to North Dakota court records.

Libner became a Fargo police officer in 2001. And two years later, he was pulled over for driving a motorcycle 35 mph above the speed limit at about 3 a.m. on 42nd Street South near 19th Avenue, according to Forum archives. After stopping the motorcycle, Fargo police Officer Troy Nielsen saw the driver was Libner and issued only a warning, the archives showed.

Nielsen later told supervisors he smelled alcohol on Libner’s breath, but didn’t give him a sobriety test. Libner denied he was under the influence of alcohol.

The traffic stop resulted in a six-day suspension without pay for Nielsen, and Libner, who pleaded guilty to careless driving, was suspended for three days without pay, the archives showed.

In 2014, Libner received a letter of reprimand for crashing his squad car into another car while responding to a call, according to his personnel file. Along with disciplinary records, Libner’s file also contains several complimentary letters from residents and supervisors.

Also in 2014, Libner made the news after a scuffle between him and a disruptive student at South High was captured on video. In that case, Todd said Libner handled the situation appropriately, while the student's mother felt Libner used too much force in taking the teen to the floor and handcuffing him.