Former APD officer Adams Watters convicted of 2nd battery

Ken de la Bastide, The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Ind.
·2 min read

May 15—ANDERSON — Former Anderson police officer Adam Watters has been convicted of a second battery charge.

Watters, a son of former Anderson Police Chief Tony Watters, was found guilty of misdemeanor battery during a bench trial Friday by Madison Circuit Court 5 Judge Scott Norrick, according to the Madison County Prosecutor's office.

The younger Watters was fined and assessed court costs and placed on six months probation.

The battery charge was filed in September 2020 after an altercation with a woman in the parking lot of a bar.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Anderson police, officers were dispatched to the Bourbon Street Bar. A woman told police she witnessed a vehicle sideswipe an unoccupied vehicle in the parking lot.

At that point, a male passenger, identified as Watters, got into an argument with the woman and eventually pushed her with two hands. She fell into the outside of her vehicle and suffered a scratch on her back.

The driver of the vehicle confirmed that Watters was the passenger in her car.

After pushing the woman, Watters walked into the bar, the affidavit states.

At the time the charge was filed, Watters was already on probation on a battery charge.

In June 2020, Watters entered guilty pleas on two misdemeanor counts and resigned from the Anderson Police Department.

According to the plea agreement, Watters was fined one dollar and ordered to pay court costs in the amount of $185.50.

Watters pleaded guilty in Madison Circuit Court 5 to misdemeanor charges of battery and interference with the reporting of a crime.

Judge Thomas Clem said felony charges of residential entry, official misconduct, strangulation and criminal confinement were dismissed by special prosecutor Eric Hoffman of Delaware County.

On Sept. 25, 2020, in Madison Circuit Court 5, a notice of violation of probation was filed against Watters. Clem placed Watters on in-home detention for 357 days.

Watters had been arrested in June 2019 on allegations that he attacked his girlfriend in the early morning of June 7 at her Anderson home. Anderson police contacted the Indiana State Police to investigate.

Watter joined the police department in 2017 and was disciplined in 2018, receiving a one-day suspension without pay for entering a bar in Pendleton with his sister, who was under the age of 21 at the time.

Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.