Tulsa, OK — The numbers do not lie. Police in America are the deadliest throughout the entire world. American cops kill far more than their counterparts in the rest of the world and these numbers are indisputable. One indicator that the problem has gotten out of hand is the fact that cops are killing cops. In a tragic case out of Florida last, a police officer killed his own police chief. Now he’s in jail and appears to have amnesia.
In November, Mannford police officer Michael Patrick Nealey, 49, was arrested and charged with the murder of Mannford police chief Lucky Miller, 44. The duo traveled from the small town of Mannford, Oklahoma for a conference in Pensacola over a weekend when things took a tragic turn.
In a local story out of Tulsa, KTUL reports that Nealey appears to have no idea why he’s in jail nor what happened. The video was just released this week, showing Nealey’s interrogation just hours after he allegedly beat Miller to death.
“I know you’re asking me questions, but can I ask you a question? Homicide? Who is dead?” Nealey asked the officers interviewing him.
“Lucky’s dead,” replied the officers.
“Lucky’s dead. Hmm,” Nealey said in response.
As KTUL reports, in pictures of the crime scene, blood and paramedic equipment is seen on the floor and a mostly empty vodka bottle is seen nearby. Nealey claims to not know what happened.
“I would like to know what happened. I’m telling you I don’t have any memory of any of this sh–. I’m shocked that Lucky’s dead. It’s shocking,” he said.
Nealey’s wife backs up this sudden onset of amnesia for her husband, claiming he just “woke up in a nightmare.”
“Only way I can describe it is he fell asleep and woke up in a nightmare. I wish we could have answers. There’s just not any at this point,” said Lisa Nealey.
“I’ve got no problem with Lucky,” Nealey said. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me has happened. I can’t believe. Hmmm. Wow.”
But the facts do not lie.
That fateful night, the two men were staying at the Hilton on Pensacola Beach over the weekend for a law enforcement conference. During their stay, authorities say an alcohol-fueled brawl broke out between the pair.
On Nov. 10, hotel security was called because the two men were disrupting the other guests. When hotel security responded, they called the sheriff’s department because the scene had turned violent.
“An actual physical altercation,” said Escambia County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Amber Southard.
According to the Escambia County Sheriff’s department, when deputies arrived on the scene, Miller was dead. Police say there was no weapon — implying that Nealey may have beaten Miller to death.
“The statement that was given by the second noise complaint was they could hear a male scream ‘Mike, stop. Mike, stop’ and then it just went quiet,” said one investigator to Nealey in the newly released tapes.
As WEAR reports:
Channel 3 News also obtained law enforcement’s interview with John Garner, the hotel’s maintenance worker who was told to check on the room and walked into the crime scene.
Garner told investigators when he went into their room, he heard grunting and then saw Miller’s feet sticking out from between the bed and the wall.
“Saw one gentleman sitting on top of another gentleman and I told him he needed to get up and all he would do was grunt,” said Garner.
Garner told investigators that he pulled Nealey off of Miller — still grunting — as Miller remained unresponsive on the floor.
“The gentleman on the floor, his face was discolored. I got on the radio and said, ‘Call for the ambulance,'” Garner told investigators.
“Did you have any sort of animosity or anything like that towards Lucky?” an investigator asked Nealey.
“Nope,” Nealey responded.
“Lucky is dead. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it,” he added.
Nealey is currently being held at the Escambia County Jail on a $1.5 million bond for the second-degree murder of Miller.
“We are heartbroken by the news,” Mannford Mayor Tyler Buttram said in a statement at the time. “Please keep both families in your prayers as we work to move forward.”
As TFTP reported, in a tragic twist of irony, the conference which the pair was attending was to teach officers about death scene investigations. It is unclear if the conference will continue given the fact that there is now an actual death scene to investigate.
“Mike Nealey was our detective. Lucky was a hands-on guy, so he always wanted to be there to learn things like that,” Officer Jerry Ridley, who has been made the interim chief, said.
After the news of the murder broke, officials in Mannford were quick to praise both officers, going so far as to call Nealey a “great man.”
“Lucky was a great man, but I’ll be honest, so was Officer Nealey. Those two were the best of friends. Where one was, the other one was. They were always together,” said Mannford Mayor Tyler Buttram.
“We ask that everybody pray for both families because two families have been devastated by this horrible tragedy. They do not understand what’s going on. None of this makes sense,” Buttram said. “Not one single person can fathom the thought of any of this. It’s so confusing.”
“I can’t understand it. Lucky was a friend, a mentor, a leader, a police officer and a family man,” Ridley told Tulsa World. He loved his family to death. He liked to go take his kids and go ride dirt bikes. He had two boys and a girl. She could ride a dirt bike better than all of the others.”
Sadly, his wife and children are now without their husband and father.
