Latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Midlands

A local councilman and teacher has been arrested on charges of being a Peeping Tom according to police.

Longtime Sumter County Councilman Artie Baker was arrested and faces a peeping tom charge stemming from a Jan. 3 incident at the home of his estranged wife, according to a police report.

Baker, 55, of 3680 Bakersfield Road in Dalzell, was taken into custody shortly after the 1:05 a.m. incident, which was prompted by a call of a possible prowler on Cutleaf Drive, where 47-year-old Sherri Baker lives.

Christopher Webster, 39, of Columbia, told police he was walking out of the bathroom in the back bedroom when he saw a weird shadow through the window.

When he opened the blinds, he said he saw a white man standing there looking at him. Webster smacked the window, the report said, which caused the man outside to run away, and he called police.

Webster described the man as wearing a brown suede-type of jacket. Police patrolling The Willows then saw a sport utility vehicle approaching the cul de sac near the home. When law enforcement turned onto Carter Road, the SUV reportedly sped away.

After police stopped the SUV at Terry and Carter roads, Baker was identified as the driver, and his brown suede jacket was noted. Baker, the report shows, told police he had just come from Burger King and was just cutting through the subdivision.