Three Lakeland Police officers and their supervisor sergeant, all with the department’s street crimes unit, resigned on Wednesday, in lieu of termination for repeatedly and intentionally turning off their department-issued body-worn cameras, and the dashboard camera of their patrol vehicle during a vehicle pursuit in March 2024.
They also lied in reports, stating that video was not available.
The officers are:
- Sgt. Mark Eby, 60, head of the street crimes unit, a 29-year veteran of the force and 2009 LPD Officer of the Year. Eby received the Medal of Valor that same year.
- Officer Jason McCain, 48, an 11-year veteran of LPD who began his law enforcement career with the Bartow Police Department, where he worked for two years. A decorated officer, he also had the most use-of-force Internal Affairs complaints of any officer at LPD in the last five and a half years.
- Officer Anton Jefferson, 38, an eight-year veteran of LPD and McCain’s partner.
- Officer Jim Simon, 32, who has worked at LPD for seven years.
The street crimes unit proactively pursues the city’s worst criminals, including drug and sex traffickers and gang members.
Damning evidence: The evidence against the four was so damning that LPD Chief Sam Tayor wrote in a Nov. 26 letter for the investigative file that he recommended firing all of them.
“I cannot ignore the intentional actions which I see as an attempt to conceal video evidence by all subject members,” Taylor stated, adding that they have all gone through extensive training regarding cameras.
“By intentionally turning off recording equipment to not capture the events brings into question their credibility and reliability to preserve evidence in future cases.”
State Attorney Brian Haas wrote in a July letter to Taylor that he had to dismiss some pending cases involving the four, adding that while their actions were not criminal and he could not file charges against them, the incident caused him “great concern.”
“Some cases have been and will be dismissed,” said State Attorney spokesman Jacob Orr. “We continue to evaluate each case and determine whether we can proceed with prosecution.”
Haas said the officers’ actions undermined their credibility.
“It appears that the four officers involved in this incident have come to believe that the rules that apply to other LPD officers do not apply to them,” Haas wrote. “As the gatekeeper of the criminal justice system, I simply cannot permit cases with questionable integrity into our courts.”
Haas added that because of the dishonesty involved, the officers would have faced damaging cross-examinations by defense attorneys during trials and that their involvement would jeopardize criminal cases.
Eby, McCain and Jefferson are three of four officers involved in the controversial arrest of convicted drug dealer Antwan Glover in December 2022. The incident was videotaped by Glover’s stepdaughter and shows the officers beating and tasing Glover, who continued to resist arrest. The four, including Detective Dillon Cornn, were cleared of any wrongdoing. Cornn was not a part of the most recent investigation.
Policy violation: The violation of department policy was discovered during a normal records retrieval process for an arrest the four officers made March 21, 2024. The suspected violation was found and reported to LPD’s Office of Professional Standards for review and/or investigation about a month after the incident. The four officers were then placed on paid administrative leave, which ended Nov. 27.
The case was given to State Attorney Brian Haas and his office in April and, at the beginning of May, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was brought in to investigate the matter, too. Both those agencies found no criminal wrongdoing.
Incident details: According to the letter regarding the officers’ investigation, Taylor wrote that LPD had received two calls for service in north Lakeland, one for “shots fired” and a second for a suspicious gray vehicle with multiple occupants wearing ski masks, reportedly with guns.
The officers and sergeant, who patrol various high-crime neighborhoods in a black, unmarked Chevy SUV equipped with police lights, drove to the neighborhood about an hour after the calls came and spotted a silver vehicle with one occupant, Almonte Landy. They attempted to stop the vehicle, but Landy sped away.
“The officers pursued the vehicle for several miles through several residential neighborhoods turning their emergency equipment on and off intermittently to clear intersections,” Taylor wrote. The dashboard camera turns on automatically whenever the police lights are activated.
Taylor added that Landy ran off on foot and was arrested when the officers caught up to him. Charges against Landy in that case have been dropped.
Haas reviewed the video and wrote that the officers “appear to feel free to manipulate the (body-worn cameras) and in-car video at will and believe they are qualified to determine what is relevant evidence in a criminal case.
“It was alarming how comfortable the officers were with routinely turning off the cameras as soon as they were activated,” Haas wrote. “The officer sitting in the front passenger seat even assists the driving officer with turning off his (camera). And all of this occurs while the supervising officer was in the back seat, manipulating his own camera throughout the chase.”
Negotiated settlement: Following the conclusions of the state attorney’s, FDLE’s and LPD’s own Internal Affairs investigations, Taylor made the recommendation in November to fire the men.
The police union then stepped in to negotiate the terms of their departure, which is allowable under the collective bargaining agreement the city has with the police department.
In the last month, the officers and Lakeland City Manager Shawn Sherrouse agreed to two negotiation extensions so both sides could continue discussing the terms of the separation.
The officers’ official end date with the department is Nov. 30, 2024.
The four will be able to keep their city of Lakeland pensions. While they will be eligible to obtain law enforcement jobs elsewhere if they can explain their actions to another agency, the letters from the chief and the state attorney questioning their integrity and reliability on the witness stand might make it difficult.
Sherrouse, who had to sign off on this arrangement, said the mutual agreement resolves the matter while avoiding the costs and uncertainty of an extended arbitration process. An arbitrator could have demanded that LPD retain their employment, which would have meant finding jobs for them that did not involve patrolling or investigating cases.
“We vehemently support our officers. However, certain policy violations are unacceptable and must be addressed accordingly,” Sherrouse wrote in a statement. “Though we anguish over these circumstances, this resolution upholds the high standards and expectations of our department and provides a reasonable outcome for all involved.”
Taylor has worked with Eby throughout most of his career at LPD.
“While Sergeant Mark Eby and Officers Jason McCain, Anton Jefferson and Jim Simon have all honorably served our city with professionalism for many years and certainly removed dangerous criminals from our community, often putting themselves in harm’s way, it saddens me that their actions have fallen short in this case,” Taylor wrote. “Every officer is expected to act responsibly, with full regard for public safety and departmental integrity … Their continued employment with this department is not sustainable.”
Prior complaints: For some community leaders, the officers’ resignations validate the concerns they have voiced loudly for years.
Pastor Clayton Cowart of the Poor Minority Justice Association said he warned former police chiefs Larry Giddens and Ruben Garcia and current Chief Taylor about corrupt policing. He said that while the chiefs have changed, the culture has not.
“Lakeland Police Department is a cesspool. It’s corrupt, and they need to change, and the leadership have to change,” said Cowart. “You can put a head on whatever body you want to put it on … but if that head does not change the body or the culture, it’s still the same.”
He has called for the resignation of multiple officers and Taylor.
Cowart said his concern is for people who were prosecuted in cases brought by Eby, McCain, Jefferson and Simon, including some people who are sitting in prison.
“They should not have been given that opportunity to just resign and receive taxpayers’ dollars when they violated the rights of citizens,” Cowart said. “There is a problem with accountability, and they have to look into the Lakeland Police Department handling of these issues, because citizens have been crying out. We have constantly, constantly put all of the evidence in their face and the information in their face, and it takes this, and that could have been somebody’s life.”
On Wednesday, Cowart was with Joshua Chatmon, who was arrested by LPD in September on drug charges. According to WTSP, the State Attorney’s office this week dropped those charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
According to records on file with the Polk County Clerk of Court, Chatmon sued the department in March over what he said was an illegal arrest and during which he said Eby, McCain, and Officer Parker Kellerman planted drugs in his car. He dropped the suit in July.
Cowart said LPD arrests people on little to no evidence, only to have the State Attorney’s office drop the charges. It is a pattern of harassment and he said Wednesday’s resignations prove what he has been saying all along.
He added that he and attorneys have been speaking with multiple clients about filing lawsuits. He said they’ve gotten calls, including from people in prison.
“What about those people?” Cowart asked. “How (do) they get out of the dilemma that they put them in?”
Kimberly C. Davis is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
