Truesee's Daily Wonder

False accusation led to raid on home, 22 stitches

Deputies were responding to murder report

By MEGAN RYAN
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

June 17, 2011, 10:02PM

Brandwynne "Brandie" Prespentt finished work at 3 p.m. June 10 and ran some errands. On the other side of town, a dog assigned to a Precinct 4 constable's deputy was attacking her husband, Travis.

The incident, which led to an arm injury requiring 22 stitches, was the climax of a bizarre sequence of events that began when the couple's neighbor, Tamara Denise White­side, phoned in a false report accusing Travis Prespentt of pistol-whipping and strangling his wife and dumping her in the back of his car.

Now Whiteside is in jail, Brandie Prespentt is alive and well, and the Prespentts are threatening to sue the constable's office for what they call an unprovoked attack.

"If my children hadn't been with my mother-in-law, what would have happened?" Brandie Prespentt asked. "And they never even apologized."

Panic and confusion

While Travis Prespentt was cleaning his porch he noticed patrol cars downstairs, but he didn't think they had anything to do with him.

When he went in for a beer, police had knocked down his door and ordered him to put his hands up. Prespentt said he did as they said, but deputies still sicced a dog on him.

As the dog chewed on Prespentt's arm, he said, the officers demanded to know where "the female" was.

Prespentt, assuming they meant his dog, first tried to tell them that she was in a cage on the porch. Then he realized they were looking for his wife, and shouted that she was at the grocery store.

At one point his sister phoned the apartment. When officers answered, Prespentt's sister immediately called his wife and told her to call her husband. Again, police answered the phone.

'I was just freaking out'

After Brandie Prespentt explained who she was, an officer told her about the call they had gotten from her neighbor.

When she asked to talk to her husband, she said he was crying and screaming, "This dog chewed my arm off!"

"The dog threw me on the ground, and I just laid there watching the dog chew my arm," Travis said. "I was just freaking out."

Assistant Chief Deputy Mark Herman said deputies had to go to the apartment because of the serious nature of the neighbor's call.

When the deputies arrived, they identified themselves and warned that they had a dog, Herman said.

"If we hadn't gone, it would have been negligent," he said. "These things happen."

By the time Brandie Prespentt made it home, she said, her husband was covered in blood. He was taken to a hospital, where he received stitches on his arm and treatment for minor scratches.

Travis Prespentt said one of the deputy constables continuously accused him of punching the dog while he was being attacked. He has denied striking the dog, protesting that he is an animal lover.

Whiteside was charged with giving a false report and failure to show identification.

Travis Prespentt has not been able to go to work for the past week, which has hampered his ability to provide for his family and pay their hospital bills, he said.

"They just went on a rumor, and I think that's uncalled-for," he said. "I've never experienced anything like this in my life."