OWEN - The Owen police chief is under investigation for numerous allegations of misconduct, including failing to arrest a drunken driver who nearly hit a pedestrian and directing an officer to spy on a candidate for City Council.

Police Chief Andrew Schade has been on paid leave since September, when city officials grew concerned about complaints from residents.

In a 26-page report from Dunn County Sheriff's Department investigator Todd Kurtzahls, obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin from the city of Owen, Schade was accused of neglecting basic job duties and misusing police department resources. The report was completed Dec. 13.

Owen City Council President Pamela Jaffke requested the investigation into Schade's behavior after a closed-session meeting about the accusations against him. Kurtzahls was brought in from another county to avoid a conflict of interest with local law enforcement agencies.

The report says the investigation was prompted by Schade's failure to ensure the police department provided fair and equal treatment to all members of the public and failure to enforce the laws and ordinances of the city, Clark County and state. It also cites unsatisfactory job performance and negligence.

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The report also noted that Schade failed to cooperate with the investigation. He was put on paid leave on Sept. 12 and is continuing to be paid $23 an hour, according to the city of Owen.

"Now that the complaint has been served there are 30 days for a hearing," Jaffke said. "The council cannot discipline a police or fire chief for (ethical) reasons. So there will be a meeting with the Police Disciplinary Committee."

The meeting will be Jan. 10, Jaffke said.

Meanwhile, the Clark County Sheriff's Department is serving Owen because its police department is vacant.

One of the incidents that prompted the investigation happened Aug. 20. A man seal-coating the Withee Mobil-Mart parking lot said a woman who was clearly intoxicated crashed into picnic tables outside the gas station and then nearly ran him over as he tried to get her to stop. The worker called 911, and a Clark County sheriff's deputy soon found Schade with the female driver at Creekside convenience store in Withee.

The deputy noted Schade didn't have his emergency lights on and didn't report that he had found the suspect. Schade didn't give the woman a field sobriety test, didn't arrest her and instead gave her a ride home without reporting he had done so, according to the investigation.

Schade told the deputy, and later the investigator, that he was under a lot of pressure and was "out of f---s to give" about his job duties that night, according to the report. He also said he didn't want to arrest the woman because her aunt had sued the city in the past over a drunken-driving citation.

Reached later by Kurtzahls, the woman admitted she was drunk and shouldn't have been driving that night, and said she knew she nearly ran over the man in the parking lot.

On Nov. 29, Kurtzahls interviewed Schade, who said he had been in law enforcement about 10 years and had pulled over "maybe under 20" drunken drivers, according to the report.

Shortly after he was placed on leave, Schade's computer hard drive from his office was missing and laptops were wiped clean of their contents. Schade, consulting his attorney, declined to answer Kurtzahls' questions about how the computers may have been tampered with.

Among other allegations against Schade, one of his former officers told Kurtzahls that the chief also ordered him to follow a friend's opponent in the City Council election for a month to find out if he lived in the proper district. The officer said Schade also told him not to pull over that same friend when he appeared to be driving drunk.

Schade also was alleged to have bought a gun for personal use with Owen Police Department money and given a 33-year-old woman a ride to Stevens Point in his squad car and $40 in cash — even though it was evident she was high on drugs.

A former Owen police officer in the report describes Schade as someone "who did not like to be crossed." The former officer also said that Schade had a "divide and conquer attitude" and would become friends with people in the community if he could use them to his advantage. The former officer also cited numerous suspicious activities including missing ammunition from the police department that was never accounted for.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin has been unable to reach Schade for comment.