Former Spirit Lake police chief jailed

COEUR d’ALENE — A former Spirit Lake police chief is in the Kootenai County jail facing a felony charge of aggravated battery for allegedly ramming his Dodge pickup truck into the car of his pregnant ex-girlfriend in Coeur d’Alene.

Patrick S. Lawless, 42, appeared Thursday in First District Magistrate Court where he was formally charged with the felony, and with second-degree stalking, a misdemeanor.

Deputy prosecutor Nina Fisk said Lawless had followed his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend to a Coeur d’Alene residence the couple was considering buying when Lawless rammed their vehicles with a Dodge pickup truck.

Fisk said Lawless probably uses the woman’s cellphone to track her and “inexplicably shows up” when the couple is together, “several times a week.”

He has been trespassed from the boyfriend’s residence, but continues to go there to harass the man, Fisk said.

“He was in fear of his life,” Fisk told Magistrate Judge Robert Caldwell of the boyfriend.

The boyfriend said he and his girlfriend, who is pregnant, were looking at a house on Harrison Avenue that they intended to rent or purchase when Lawless drove by in his pickup truck and yelled at the couple before turning around.

As the couple reportedly fled in separate vehicles, Lawless rammed the boyfriend’s car, pushing it into his pregnant girlfriend’s SUV.

“He had a block to floor it,” the boyfriend said. “He was up to 50-plus. He didn’t hit his brakes. The only thing that stopped him was me.”

Lawless, a conductor for the BNSF railroad, was taken into custody and Caldwell signed a no-contact order prohibiting the former lawman to come within 300 feet of the woman or her boyfriend.

Although Lawless has no prior criminal record, has strong ties to the community and has a child living at home, Caldwell said the aggravated charge required a substantial bond.

Lawless resigned from the Spirit Lake Police Department in 2012 in the wake of a sexual misconduct allegation. He worked there six years after moving from Connecticut, where he was reportedly terminated from a police department for “violating the rules and regulations of the department,” according to news reports.

If Lawless posts bond, he will have his next hearing within 21 days. If he fails to post bail and remains in jail, his hearing will be within 14 days.