Two investigations resulted in officer suspensions of over a week. One case stemmed from a K9 attack on a Gainesville man.
The Gainesville Police Advisory Council is holding its monthly meeting at city hall Wednesday night, and part of the agenda is to review several of the department’s recently completed internal affairs investigations.
Two of the investigations resulted in officer suspensions of at least one week without pay, the reports show.
One of the internal investigations relates to the fallout from the Terrell Bradley case, in which a K9 ripped out a man’s eye, and two officers on the scene — Andrew Milman and Matt Shott — took photos of the aftermath with their cell phones and joked about it through text.
The investigation was into Officer Rebecca Holcomb for a post she made to her personal Facebook page that stated, “Matt and Milman should have been fired” and “They are disgusting, and I hope that I never have to work with them.”
Milman filed a complaint against Holcomb for the statements made, citing that the comments violated GPD Policy.
The department’s internal investigation found that her comments were substantial grounds for “Holcomb’s lack of desire to work with either officer” and negatively affected the officer’s working relationship and reputation.
Holcomb was suspended for five days without pay, according to the report.
A second notable internal investigation concerned accusations against Officer Khaliff Gamble of falsification of official police documents and neglecting the duties of an officer when at the scene of a death investigation.
Gamble arrived at a house in the 1100 block of Northwest Sixth Street, where a body was decomposing inside the bathroom; his job was to go inside and assess a potential cause of death.
Gamble refused to enter the residence and can be heard on body-worn camera footage telling his partner, Officer Frederid Tirado: “Dude, I can’t.”
The internal investigation and body-worn camera footage support that Gamble never entered the residence yet still filed an incident report as if he had.
Tirado, who did enter, noted several things about the scene: blood was smeared in the bathtub, and the dead man sat slumped over on the toilet. A knife was also found near the man’s body.
Gamble told investigators that he determined the death had been from natural causes and that neither a homicide detective nor a medical examiner needed to visit the scene. Gamble allowed a funeral home’s transport team to remove the body from the scene without first taking photographs, the internal affairs investigation found.
Gamble was asked during his interview with investigators why he had described his involvement on the scene as if he had entered the home when he didn’t, and he replied, “I shouldn’t have. I guess I lied.” Gamble reported that the cause of death was likely due to a medical condition when Gamble’s supervisor later determined that evidence pointed otherwise — likely a suicide.
Gamble was suspended without pay for 10 days, the report said, “due to the serious nature of the violation.”
The Gainesville Police Advisory Council will review these and seven other internal affairs reports on Wednesday at 6 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.
