Chief: Tavares police officer should be fired after using stun gun on man
Tavares #Tavares
A Tavares police officer may be fired after he allegedly violated policy earlier this year when a man was stunned with a Taser.
Body cam footage and the details of the internal investigation were released Friday.
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“I know police have to do their job, but I feel like he did something really wrong. It could have went bad. My son could have got killed,” Adria Floyd, the man’s mother, said.
Floyd wasn’t at home when Tavares Officer Jason Baugh tried to get her son to stop walking away back in August.
“I’m 10-12 with a Black man. He’s not stopping for me. Come here. Stop! Right now!” Baugh said on his body camera.
He uses his Taser, then arrests the man at gunpoint, inside Floyd’s home.
“I don’t think he really even had a reason. I think he was looking for someone to mess with that day. I’m not sure,” Floyd said.
Because the officer used his Taser, there was a use-of-force review. That review of force determined violations of policy. The police chief is recommending he be fired.
“How you doing? Your car? Come and talk to me. Come here!” can be heard on the body cam video.
“We’re not going to tolerate any failure to meet high standards,” Det. Courtney Sullivan said.
Baugh says he saw a car being driven recklessly with a busted windshield. He told investigators he “observed him being evasive, possibly involved in a hit-and-run.”
“Sort of took off on me, but I didn’t light it up,” he told investigators.
That meant he did not stop the suspicious driver but rolled up on the running car at the driver’s mom’s home.
“This could have been a completely different situation if Officer Baugh conducted a traffic stop,” Sullivan said.
Not pulling the car over at first and then the actions at the home led to policy violations, according to the internal investigation.
It says Baugh “could not provide any specific facts or evidence to show that (the subject) was a threat to his safety.”
While the internal does not mention race or bias, the man’s mom says her son didn’t stop walking because he wanted a family member by his side.
“He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t know how that would end, so he did the right thing as far as doing that,” she said.
She fully supports the police chief recommending the officer be fired.
Her son spent five days in jail before the review led to his release with no charges filed.
The officer can appeal the recommendation of termination.
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