Onondaga County deputy charged after crashing into Manlius dental office

The first sign of trouble was the sound of a pickup hitting signs before it slammed into 102 West Seneca Street, the Manlius building that houses Manlius Dental Group. Police said the driver was 28-year-old Bradley McGraw-Wixson of Clay, an Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office road patrol deputy, and they charged him after the early-morning crash in the Village of Manlius.

Manlius police said the crash happened around 3:45 a.m. on Friday, May 1, after McGraw-Wixson’s 2021 Dodge Ram failed to make the turn at Fayette and Seneca streets. Officers said he was charged with driving while intoxicated, moving from lane unsafely, and speed not reasonable and prudent. He was processed and released on appearance tickets for Village of Manlius Court, and police said he was not injured. WSYR described the damage to the building as minor structural damage.

The case quickly became bigger than a traffic crash because the accused driver works for the county agency charged with enforcing the law. The incident was described as remaining under investigation by the sheriff’s office internal affairs unit and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, putting a criminal case and an internal review on parallel tracks. The Town of Manlius Police Department, which says it is a full-service, community-oriented law-enforcement agency, handled the crash scene in the village.

That public-trust question is not new in Onondaga County. In a 2021 case, another sheriff’s deputy, Kevin Drumm, was charged with DWI, the matter went to internal affairs, and Drumm later returned to duty after a 30-day unpaid suspension before being fired after a DWI conviction. That history gives this latest arrest immediate weight inside a department that must show its own officers are not held to a different standard than civilians.

For Manlius Dental Group, the crash meant a building strike at a busy commercial address before sunrise, with the office left to deal with the aftermath of the impact and minor structural damage. The reports did not identify who would cover the repair bill, but the damage landed on a neighborhood business that had to absorb a vehicle crash at 102 West Seneca Street before the workday began.