Iowa police officer accused of punching girlfriend outside Florida Keys bar

RAMROD KEY, Fla. – Deputies in the Florida Keys arrested an Iowa police officer on two misdemeanor battery charges Monday evening after authorities accused him of punching his girlfriend outside of a bar.

Charles Leroy Dailey, 40, is listed in Monroe County Sheriff’s Office arrest records as a police officer in Clarinda, Iowa.

A social media post from the Clarinda Police Department shows Dailey being sworn in as an officer in Jan. 2021.

According to an arrest report, deputies responded to Boondocks Grille and Draft House on Ramrod Key just after 6:30 p.m. after an employee called authorities to report that a woman was yelling “he just punched me” and holding her face while in the bar’s back parking lot.

The report states that Dailey became “agitated” after his girlfriend asked to check his phone, because she believed he was talking to other women.

Deputy Hunter Buscemi wrote that surveillance video showed Dailey punching the woman in the face “without provocation.”

The victim “was seen dropping what appeared to be a phone as she fell onto the pea rock” and had “swelling of her left (side of her) face from being punched and abrasions on her legs from falling onto the pea rock,” Buscemi wrote.

Dailey was set to be arraigned in Monroe County court on March 3, according to jail records.

Clarinda police Chief Keith Brothers told Local 10 News Tuesday afternoon that he had been made aware of the arrest.

“That concerns me greatly and that disappoints me,” Brothers said. “I am a believer in due process. We’ll get the due process situation going when Officer Dailey returns to Iowa.”

Brothers said Dailey remains employed by the police department and the agency will initiate an internal investigation upon his return to the state.