An Odessa Fire Department captain who will be promoted at the end of the month and the West Odessa Volunteer Fire Department chief got into some sort of a scuffle earlier this month that resulted in the police being called to OFR’s central fire station.
WOVFD Chief Austin Harden, 34, and soon-to-be Division Captain Ben Sawyer, 35, are both listed as offender/suspect/victim on an Odessa Police Department report written following the March 3 incident.
According to the report, officers were dispatched to the station on West 2nd Street around 1:30 a.m. for a disturbance.
When officers arrived, Sawyer told them he and his crews had just returned from a major vehicle wreck on Loop 338 when he saw Harden drive down McKinney Avenue at a slow rate of speed, the report stated. He said he’d seen Harden near the wreck and so when Harden drove by the station he “lifted his arms in a confused manner” toward Harden.
At that point, Sawyer said Harden pulled into the parking lot in front of the garage bays.
According to the report, Sawyer admitted to “getting onto (Harden’s) ass” while standing outside Harden’s door, asking why he was driving by the station and showing up to calls for service within the city’s jurisdiction.
Sawyer said he was leaning on the driver’s side window as they continued to argue and he saw Harden reach for something near the center console, the report stated. He said Harden told him to stop touching him and to get away from him before “popping” him near the back of his head.
Sawyer told the officers Harden then “peeled out” of the parking lot, the report stated.
Harden told officers he was “out and about” and decided to stop by the station when he saw the crew was out on a call so he could ask about a missing fire hose, the report stated. When he saw the crews had already backed into the station bay by the time he got there, Harden said he changed his mind.
Harden said he only decided to stop when Sawyer ran from the bay and flagged him down, the report stated.
After he pulled in, Harden said Sawyer came “aggressively toward” his vehicle and when Sawyer arrived to his window, he grabbed it and pulled it down, the report stated.
“Chief Harden advised that Captain Sawyer began to slander him verbally and refused to step back from his vehicle,” the report stated. “Chief Harden stated that during this time, Captain Sawyer grew increasingly angry.”
At one point, Sawyer grabbed his left arm and “started twisting it in, pulling it out of the vehicle,” Harden told the officers.
He also told officers Sawyer hit the left side of his face with a closed fist, the report stated.
“Chief Harden stated that because one of his arms was being pinned, he got on Dispatch and advised he was being assaulted by Division 1,” the report stated. “Remembering that his vehicle was in drive, Chief Harden advised that he drove away and put himself at a safe distance until officers arrived.”
Officers took photos of Harden and one noted Harden had a “light redness along his gumline (top front teeth),” the report stated.
Odessa Fire Chief Jason Cotton confirmed Wednesday Sawyer will not be disciplined and will be one of many OFR personnel participating in a promotion or “pinning” ceremony on March 28.
“We have done our investigation. We did the investigation. We got the police report and from what we can tell this is a ‘he said, he said’ issue with no person filing charges and without any facts saying otherwise, there’s nothing I can do or are going to do,” Cotton said.
Although Harden told police he wished to pursue charges against Sawyer, Cotton said Harden told him he’d changed his mind.
Asked about a past history between the men, Cotton said the two “do not get along” and their dispute is of a personal, not professional nature.
“Bottom line, whether they get along or not, my heartache with it is Austin showing up to our fire station at 1:30 on a Sunday morning and following our members to our fire station from a run,” Cotton said.
Harden told him he had been asked to shoot drone footage of the wreck by DPS, but he’s not supposed to go on calls within the city limits, Cotton said.
“I have no factual evidence that Ben did anything wrong and I don’t believe that he did anything wrong,” Cotton said. “He’s one of our best firefighters, one of our best employees…he’s the kind of employee you’d want directly underneath you because you don’t have to worry about anything. He takes care of 99% of the problems.”
The fact the pinning ceremony was postponed from its original date had nothing to do with Sawyer, Cotton said. He erred by scheduling it during spring break, not realizing several firefighters would be out of town.
Sawyer will become one of six division captains, which is one step below a battalion chief, Cotton said. The department currently has three, but will be hiring three more in the coming months.
Moving forward, Cotton said he doesn’t believe there will be any issues even though the men will likely end up on the same scenes.
“The discussions I have had with both parties is that they do not interact unless it’s nothing but business. And nothing is to happen above and beyond that, and I was guaranteed by both of them that that would be the case,” Cotton said.
According to Ector County court records, this wasn’t Sawyer’s first brush with police.
Records show Sawyer was arrested in March 2018 on suspicion of assault/family violence causing bodily injury, interference with emergency request for assistance and criminal mischief.
The incident involved a woman he was dating at the time, records show.
The charges were dismissed in December 2018 as a result of “prosecutorial discretion,” records show.
Cotton noted that was well before he was fire chief.
“To me, it’s irrelevant because I know who he is and what he stands for and what kind of man he is and what he does for our department,” Cotton said.
Harden, too, has been in trouble with the law.
According to Smith County records, between 2007 (when he was 17) and 2014, Harden was convicted of impersonating a public servant, multiple counts of driving while license suspended or revoked, theft of property by check, assault on a public servant, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, evading arrest and burglary of a building.
