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CLARKSVILLE, Ind. — A Clarksville Fire Department firefighter was arrested at his Jeffersonville home Wednesday following claims he sprayed his infant stepdaughter with pepper spray and assaulted the child’s father who he had invited to the residence.
Charles Edelen, 34, a private with the fire department, was booked into the Clark County jail at 2:24 a.m. Wednesday and was released ten hours later, after his $5,000 cash-only bond was paid in full.
Clarksville Police Chief Tom Upton said Thursday morning that no disciplinary action has been taken against Edelen at this point, but that the matter has his attention.
“I’m actively looking into it,” Upton said. “We are handling this as a personnel issue.”
Upton said that Edelen has been employed with the CFD since September 2006.
“I was very surprised,” Upton said of learning of the criminal allegations. “[Edelen] has been an exemplary employee up to this point.”
When reached by phone Thursday Edelen refused to comment.
Police response
The Jeffersonville Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office responded to Edelen’s Sky Crest Court home about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in reference to a suicidal man.
Before officers reached the home, dispatch notified that the man, later identified as Edelen, was in his neighbor’s backyard.
At the scene, officers found Edelen being held on the ground by several people.
Edelen later reported to police that an altercation involving himself, his wife, the man she had a child with during a marital separation, and his infant stepchild had taken place before police arrived.
He claimed that he and his wife, who had reunited, had invited the child’s father to their home “to have a few drinks and discuss the issues on hand regarding the child,” according to the police report.
Before the child’s father arrived, Edelen said, he and his wife were arguing about her only wearing a shirt and underwear.
He claimed that after the child’s father arrived, the arguing continued. Edelen asked the man to leave, which he refused to immediately do.
“Charles [Edelen] advised that is when things became very heated and this incident escalated,” police reported.
He provided no further comment on the altercation, bud did report that “at one point he did have a handgun held to his head and was contemplating suicide,” according to the police report.
Police questioned the child’s father, who also stated that Edelen and his wife were arguing when he arrived to the home.
During the argument, the man reported, Edelen went to his bedroom and returned to the living room with a can of pepper spray.
“As [Edelen] and his wife ... continued to argue, [Edelen] sprayed the side of [her] face with pepper spray, causing her to run out of the residence with her 8-year-old son.”
The child’s father reported that Edelen then confronted him while he was holding the infant. Edelen told the man to put down the child, and when the man refused, Edelen sprayed the pepper spray on the man and his daughter, according to the father’s statement.
“[The father] advised he was temporarily blinded by the pepper spray, and he remembered holding his daughter tight and trying to find their way out of the residence.”
The man made his way out of the home, and a neighbor took the child to safety.
While standing in the neighbor’s yard, the man reported, Edelen tackled him and struck him in the face multiple times before others in the area restrained him.
Witness statements
Edelen’s wife reported that she, the infant and the child’s father were all sprayed in the face with the pepper spray by Edelen in the presence of her 8-year-old son.
The woman received minor injuries, redness, burning and swelling from the pepper spray, police reported.
According to the report, the infant was taken to Kosair Children’s Hospital “for burns to her face, eyes swollen shut, and possible respiratory problems from being sprayed in the face with pepper spray by Charles Edelen.”
The father was found with lacerations to his face from being struck and redness and swelling from the pepper spray.
A neighbor told police that he had intervened in the incident after it had spilled outdoors and that he had seen Edelen standing outside his home with a handgun held to his head.
The neighbor also reported that he and others had stopped Edelen’s attack on the father and held him on the ground until police arrived.
Police reported Edelen was found with a .14 blood alcohol concentration.
He was arrested at the scene and taken to the Clark County jail.
Edelen was preliminarily charged with level 3 felony aggravated battery; criminal recklessness while armed with a deadly weapon; domestic battery; and class B misdemeanor public intoxication.
He appeared for an advisement of rights hearing in Clark County Circuit Court No. 1 on Wednesday, the following day.
According to online court records, Edelen was ordered by the court that if he were to post bond, he was not permitted to possess any weapons or have contact with the “victims.” The court also ordered him to seek mental health treatment.
Edelen is expected to return to the court Friday morning, June 26, for an initial hearing and to be formally charged.
The Clarksville Police, Fire and Safety Commission, which has disciplinary jurisdiction over members of Clarksville Fire Department, called a special meeting Wednesday regarding the allegations against Edelen. The public meeting is scheduled for Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at the Clarksville Fire Department headquarters, 2249 Sam Gwin Drive, near the town’s municipal center.
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