LAKELAND — A captain with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Lakeland place of work was demoted and reassigned to Walton County right after an inside investigation found he made vulgar or disparaging reviews about some officers and deprived officers he didn’t like of equipment and education.
The FWC Business office of Inspector Standard produced a report in January about the internal investigation into Joseph Brooks, a former captain in the Lakeland business office of FWC’s law enforcement division.
A criticism submitted on Sept. 13 by Lt. Jared Cloud “alleged Brooks subjected his workers to a hostile perform surroundings by earning disparaging remarks about fellow workers.”
In the grievance, Cloud claimed Brooks took photos of ladies in the place of work of a “sexual undertone” without their permission and texted the photographs to other officers.
According to the report, Cloud mentioned a number of the officers beneath Brooks also experienced troubles with the way he dealt with them. FWC officers experienced stress and anxiety and worry mainly because they thought Brooks produced their work setting complicated, and have been relieved when Brooks was off responsibility, the complainant stated.
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The complaint alleged that Brooks manufactured profane responses about staffers he failed to like and that he denied schooling and gear requests for some of them.
“Officers were being deprived of instruction and equipment they asked for,” the FWC report claimed. “Some of the officers considered Brooks handled them unique than other folks, and the morale was low.”
In the grievance, Cloud said Brooks once threatened an officer with a generate-up “to hinder the future work he was starting.” When the officer asked for time off since of his father’s professional medical difficulties, the grievance stated Brooks dismissed the request with a profanity and said the officer “was an idiot.”
The grievance also explained Brooks was “quite influential” and “untouchable” in the agency and that’s why officers had been fearful to report his actions.
According to Cloud, Brooks also made vulgar and inappropriate remarks inside of earshot of other FWC officers and a Polk County sheriff’s sergeant when he accused two vagrants of performing sexual functions on just about every other. Cloud also said Brooks’ actions made officers afraid to discuss in opposition to him.
Capt. Maurice Austin did the administrative investigation and located all of Cloud’s allegations to be real immediately after questioning at the very least 8 other officers.
In January, 4 FWC self-control committee associates suggested that Brooks be terminated, 4 encouraged he be dismissed, two proposed he be suspended for 10 days with demotion and relocation and 3 advised Brooks be suspended for 30 times with demotion and relocation.
In the FWC’s settlement agreement with Brooks from February, the commission stated it intended to dismiss Brooks from employment but determined as an alternative to demote him from captain to legislation enforcement officer and transfer him to the Walton County place of work. The FWC mentioned Brooks can never be reassigned to the Southwest Region Lakeland business, and he was suspended for 10 times at the end of March with out fork out.
Brooks was employed to go to the FWC academy as an officer in February 2005, and after he graduated at the finish of that yr, he was assigned to Okeechobee County. Brooks was reassigned to Highlands County as an officer in 2006 then promoted in 2009 to investigator in Polk County. In 2014, Brooks was promoted to lieutenant in Highlands County in advance of he was reassigned to Polk County in 2017. He turned a captain at the Polk County office environment in 2018.