Brooksville Officer Out Of A Job

BROOKSVILLE - A Brooksville police officer was fired Friday, in part because of a perceived threat not to serve as backup for a colleague.

An investigation was opened two weeks ago to determine whether Diana Lopez's remark was made in the heat of the moment, or rooted in genuine animosity.

The internal inquiry snowballed into 13 policy violations that ultimately led to the officer's dismissal last week.

Chief George Turner said he did not enjoy handing out a pink slip three months after taking the top job, but he considered the officer's comment "very serious."

Lopez does not have a listed phone number. A phone number for her attorney, Michael Croone, could not be found.

According to documents released Wednesday, Lopez requested four days off around the Christmas holidays. Another officer, Shane Derryberry, had already reserved those dates months prior, but the chief suggested Lopez get together with him to see if they could work out a compromise.

Nine of the alleged violations occurred on Dec. 7:

Instead of speaking with Derryberry directly, Lopez asked her supervisor, Josh Caldwell, to intervene. After speaking with the officer, the acting sergeant informed Lopez that Derryberry couldn't change his plans.

This made Lopez "very angry" and she warned that Derryberry "would need her one day and she would not help him," according to a report.

At 4 p.m., Lopez was assigned to light desk duty on doctor's orders after an unrelated injury. The chief gave her a job in dispatch answering phones and running background checks.

Fifteen minutes later, Caldwell was told to send a confidential letter to the city law firm outlining the conversation with Lopez and the context of the perceived threat.

Two hours later, the chief saw Lopez in the employee parking lot hand over a sheet of white paper to someone in a white sport utility vehicle.

At 6:20 p.m., Lopez was in the chief's office on the verge of tears and "very upset." She gave the chief a copy of the confidential letter that Caldwell had written to the Hogan Law Firm. Asked how she found the letter, Lopez told Turner she had printed it from a computer in the patrol officer's room.

About 25 minutes later, Lopez demonstrated for Turner and Caldwell how she had opened a computer file titled vehicle156 (Caldwell's assigned patrol car). She said Caldwell and Lt. Rick Hankins had been speaking in whispers all day and she wanted to find out what her supervisor "was up to."

She added that she is "a cop and knows how to find things."

Among the policy violations that Turner sustained: leaving work without permission, stealing property and insubordination.

In a separate investigation, Lopez failed to answer a subpoena for two traffic cases and called the court clerks office to tell them to dismiss the charges, according to Turner.

The chief was unsure about the specifics of the cases.

Lopez has 14 days to appeal her termination with the city of Brooksville.