Arnold police officer accused of lying about hit-and-run damaging patrol car

An Arnold police officer is accused of lying about his patrol vehicle being damaged in a hit-and-run and staging a scene at a convenience store parking lot.

The officer, Ryan Matthew Clark, 32, of Buffalo Township, is suspended without pay, Mayor Joe Bia said Wednesday.

The Westmoreland County Detective Bureau charged Clark on Tuesday with filing a false report to law enforcement and tampering with or fabricating evidence, both misdemeanor offenses. New Kensington District Judge Frank J. Pallone Jr.’s office released the criminal complaint against him Wednesday.

According to the complaint, the incident happened about 10:25 a.m. June 21 when Clark reported to Westmoreland County 911 that his patrol vehicle had been hit in the parking lot of a Sunoco 7-Eleven store on Freeport Road in Arnold and that the person responsible fled.

Clark asked for a New Kensington officer to respond to investigate, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, Clark told New Kensington Officer Phil Huth that an unknown person alerted him to damage to the passenger side of his patrol vehicle when he came out of the store.

Clark told New Kensington police he did not see the collision, only that he came outside and saw the rocker panel hanging off the door, the complaint states.

Huth documented recent damage to both passenger side doors and the passenger side rear wheel, police said.

Huth said Clark told him he checked with store employees, who told Clark that the store’s outside surveillance cameras were not working, the complaint states.

But a few days later, on June 24, New Kensington Police Sgt. Kevin Hess was notified that the store’s cameras were working and that no hit-and-run had been recorded, the complaint said.

New Kensington police secured the surveillance video from the station as well as from the nearby Dairy Queen and Union Cemetery, police said. County detectives then took over the investigation.

According to the complaint, the video from Sunoco shows an Arnold patrol vehicle leaving Union Cemetery and entering the station’s parking lot about 10:17 a.m. Clark is seen getting out and going into the store, police said.

Four minutes later, Clark leaves the store and goes to his vehicle, the complaint said. He then is seen opening the passenger door and removing a piece of the vehicle’s damaged rocker panel and placing it against the passenger side rear fender, police said.

Clark goes back into the store and then comes out and talks with a customer, the complaint said. The two are then seen walking to the passenger side of the vehicle and inspecting the damage, police said.

The complaint does not contain any information about when, where or how the Arnold patrol vehicle was damaged.

Bia did not respond when asked for an estimate of the damage to the vehicle.

Clark did not have an attorney listed in court records.

Clark is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Aug. 11 before Pallone.