Onondaga County deputy with hit-and-run history arrested again, this time charged with drunken driving

DeWitt, N.Y. — An off-duty Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office deputy who was involved in a hit-and-run after drinking in 2017 was arrested for drunken driving Saturday night, court records show.

Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies pulled over fellow deputy Kevin Drumm, 38, just before midnight after a traveler on southbound Interstate 481 called 911 to report someone driving a pickup truck erratically on the highway, according to Sgt. Jon Seeber, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. Drumm was stopped near the Rt. 298 exit of the highway north of the Thruway.

Drumm appeared to be drunk, but he refused to take a breath test for alcohol and was arrested, Seeber said.

This isn’t Drumm’s first run-in with police.

In 2017, Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard reported on how Drumm sideswiped a car in Tully and drove another couple miles before going off the road onto someone’s lawn. Sheriff’s deputies and a sergeant who responded to that call didn’t give Drumm a breath test.

Drum told a deputy investigating the crash that he “dropped some food that he was holding,” and became distracted, according to the two-page New York State Motor Vehicle police accident report obtained by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.

Drumm said he “felt an impact” but that he “believed he had hit debris in the roadway,” not another car, according to the report.

That time, Drumm was charged with leaving the scene of an accident (a charge that eventually was dropped), but he wasn’t charged with drunken driving. He later testified that he had had four or five beers in the few hours before the accidents.

After that incident, Sheriff Eugene Conway suspended Drumm without pay and asked him to resign. But Drumm took his case to arbitration and won $16,000 in back pay for missed overtime and security detail work from the time he was assigned to a no-work job for the sheriff’s office.

It’s unclear whether Drumm had been reassigned to road duty after spending several months in that no-work job after the hit-and-run. State records show that Drumm made $85,092 as a deputy in 2020 and has made about $81,000 in that role so far this year.

In this latest incident, Drumm was charged with driving while intoxicated (his first offense), refusing a breath test and making an unsafe lane change, court records show.

The sheriff’s office Internal Affairs Unit and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s office are still investigating, Seeber said. He didn’t say whether Drumm would be suspended again.

Drumm did not reply to a request for comment.

He was arraigned in the county’s centralized arraignment court Sunday morning and is set to appear in Town of DeWitt Court on Oct. 26.

Syracuse.com| The Post-Standard articles about Deputy Kevin Drumm and his crashes in Tully:

Oct. 10, 2017: Off-duty sheriff’s deputy charged with leaving scene of a car accident

Oct. 12, 2017: Sheriff’s office won’t say if deputy tested after crash; other cops under investigation

Oct. 23, 2017: Experts: CNY deputy who left scene ‘clearly should have been tested’ for alcohol/drugs

Oct. 26, 2017: CNY deputy charged with leaving scene of accident blames ‘dropped food’ for crash

Nov. 9, 2017: Sheriff: I believe deputy who crashed twice was under the influence; seeks to fire him

Oct. 4, 2018: 1 year later: Where is CNY deputy who was charged after crashing car, fleeing scene?

Sept. 27, 2019: Central NY deputy who was charged with fleeing crash, did rehab, threatens to sue county

Nov. 11, 2019: Exclusive: Deputy was drinking and crashed twice, but he kept his job and county owes him $16K

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Call or text Megan Craig at ‪315-925-7137, email her at mcraig@syracuse.com or send a direct message on Twitter @megcraig1.

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