Two Bartlesville Police Officers Charged With Assault & Battery

The Washington County District Attorney's Office has filed misdemeanor assault and battery charges against two Bartlesville Police officers stemming from an incident at a Bartlesville hospital on September 18, 2011.

Stacy Neafus and Sonya Worthington and two other officers were suspended by Bartlesville Police Chief Tom Holland several days after the incident at the ER at Jane Phillips Medical Center.

According to court records, officer Sonya Worthington struck and placed a man in a headlock, "pulling and twisting his head," while he was handcuffed "with force and violence."

Read Information document filed with the court.

Officer Stacy Neafus pushed the same man "over a metal chair arm with the weight of the defendant" pressing on the man's chest while the man "was handcuffed, with force and violence," according to the documents.

Read Information document filed with the court.

Earlier this month, a search warrant filed with the court as part of an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation report on the incident stated a patient went to the hospital with suicidal thoughts and medical staff members were evaluating the patient when he became agitated. Bartlesville Police were called.

A "concerned citizen" told investigators the man was handcuffed and became combative with the officers, who "slammed (the patient) on the cot in the room, on the floor in the room and that, at one point, one of the officers had choked (the patient) to the point of unconsciousness."

11/12/2011 Related Story: New Information Released In Bartlesville Police Officers' Suspension

The court clerk's office says both officers were charged and released by a judge on their own recognizance Thursday.

Both are scheduled for a hearing in Washington County District Court on January 11, 2012.

A call to Police Chief Tom Holland concerning the status of the other two officers who were not charged but suspended has not been returned.