A handcuffed man sat restrained in the back of a patrol car on the San Carlos Apache Nation. Federal prosecutors say the officer watching him threw one punch — hard enough to knock him unconscious — then yanked him out of the vehicle, splitting his head open on the concrete. What happened to the paperwork afterward, they say, is the second crime.
Jacob Christopher Slawson, 29, an officer with the San Carlos Apache Police Department, was indicted by a federal grand jury on August 26. The two counts: deprivation of rights under color of law, and falsification of records. Combined, they carry a maximum of 30 years in federal prison.
What the indictment says
The charging document’s sequence is short and stark. An arrestee was handcuffed and secured in the back of a patrol vehicle — fully restrained. Prosecutors allege Slawson punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious while he sat in that restraint. Then, they say, he yanked the man out of the vehicle. The indictment’s own words: “causing N.G. to split his head open on the concrete, resulting in bodily injury.”
The victim appears in court papers only as N.G. The Justice Department has not said when the incident happened, or where — an unusually quiet file for a federal civil rights case. What is public is the setting: the San Carlos Apache Nation covers more than 1,800 square miles of eastern Arizona, and its officers are often the only police for a hundred miles around towns like Peridot and San Carlos.
The second charge is the cover-up
The violence allegation is only half the indictment. Prosecutors say that when Slawson learned he was under investigation for excessive force, he went to work on the paperwork instead of the truth — altering a report that belonged to a fellow detective and inserting false information with the intent to obstruct the federal investigation.
That is the detail that will follow this case: the man accused of the beating allegedly rewrote the official record of it, under another officer’s name.
The department’s answer
The San Carlos Apache Police Department says it opened an internal investigation and placed Slawson on administrative leave as soon as it learned of the allegations, and that “members of the Department fully cooperated” with the FBI.
One detail sits oddly next to that statement. Slawson was dismissed before completing his probationary period — and the department attributes that firing to “unrelated policy violations.” It has since ordered a review of its policies and procedures, promising changes where needed.
The indictment was announced by the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, alongside U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine for the District of Arizona and FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Rebecca Day. The FBI’s Tucson resident agency and Phoenix field office ran the investigation.
What happens next
Slawson faces arraignment in federal court. No booking photo has been released — the case arrived by indictment, not a county jail booking. If convicted on both counts, the statutory maximum is 30 years in prison — the full weight of a federal civil rights prosecution, not a local personnel file.
Every charge is an allegation right now. Slawson is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. This post will be updated as the court record develops: arraignment date, docket entries, and any further statement from the San Carlos Apache Police Department.
When the officer wearing the badge is both the alleged attacker and the author of the official record — how would N.G. ever have been believed?
Sources
DOJ press release (26-976) · KOLD 13 · KVOA News 4 Tucson · KTAR 92.3 · Arizona’s Family · ABC15 · Fox 10 Phoenix · FBI Phoenix · San Carlos Apache Police Department statement (Aug 26)
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