OKAY — The Okay Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday night to dismiss its police force: Chief Ron Lee and Officer Matthew C. Pruegert.

Pruegert was arrested early Thursday by Wagoner police on complaints of driving under the influence and carrying a firearm during commission of a crime. Pruegert was driving an Okay police car and wearing his gun and badge and a uniform shirt at the time, said Wagoner Police Chief Terry Hornbuckle.

Radio dispatch logs from the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office show the office received a complaint that Lee and Pruegert were drinking and driving Okay police cars in Okay.

Wagoner police arrested Pruegert at a Wagoner convenience store as he answered a call to relieve a county officer who had been guarding a mental health patient from Okay at Wagoner Community Hospital.

Lee and Pruegert said the allegations they were drinking on the job were untrue.

“No, no, no, no,” Lee said in an interview. “I was not drinking or in any of the vehicles last night or anything like that.”

“I’ve got a lot of pride, and this right here is tearing it down,” Pruegert told the trustees. “I wouldn’t be out driving and drinking in the car. I was not intoxicated when that happened last night.”

Pruegert said he had quit as a police officer before making the call and had left his badge on a desk in the police department.

He said he went on the call because he felt that chaos was breaking out and he wanted to help out.

Pruegert said he had been an unpaid reserve officer for Okay for several months and had been on the town’s payroll for about two weeks.

The trustees’ 5-0 vote came after a 12-minute executive session at a special meeting of the board.

Trustee Deborah Morrow moved both be dismissed “for the betterment of the community.”

The two officers were told to turn in their guns and badges immediately and meet today with Trustees Michelle Bond and Elden McCullough for an inventory.

Lee said he would refuse to meet with McCullough.

“I don’t have to worry about Elden stabbing me in the back anymore,” Lee said. “I don’t have to worry about anything else he does.”