A former DARE officer from eastern Iowa has been charged with drunk driving near his Eldridge home. 42-year-old Mark Garden, a Scott County sheriff’s deputy, was picked up late last week by a state trooper. The trooper says Garden’s unmarked police car was weaving, and the deputy failed a field sobriety test. Garden, a detective, is on paid leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation resulting from the charges. A former police officer in Eldridge and Buffalo, Garden became a deputy in 1990 after working as a corrections officer at Scott County Jail. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for sheriff in January 2001.
