Foul-mouthed deputy suspended for unleashing tirade of expletives at 17-year-old boy

A Volusia County sheriff's deputy was forced to serve an unpaid, eight-hour suspension in January after unleashing a tirade of expletives at a 17-year-old boy during a traffic stop as well as failing to turn his body camera on, Internal Affairs investigators said in a report.

Deputy Douglas Meyer who was previously disciplined for being discourteous and failing to activate his body camera, also used foul language during a call with the boy's father, the report said.

The incident began when Meyer pulled the teen over at gunpoint on Oct. 19 of last year in the 200 block of Airport Road in New Smyrna Beach. Meyer said that he initially believed the teen was firing a gun from his car, but it was backfiring.

In a complaint filed by the teen's mother, she said the deputy screamed at the teen to get out of the vehicle and then slammed him on the hood. During the incident, the teen referred to Meyer as "officer" and he responded that he was a (expletive) deputy, the mother wrote.

Meyer asked the teen who the car belonged to. When the teen said the vehicle was in his father's name but that it was his car, Meyer called the boy an entitled piece of (expletive), the report said.

Meyer threatened to impound the car and when the teen asked him why, he said "because I can you entitled piece of (expletive)," the report states. Meyer then called the teen's father in a rage.

"I couldn't really make out all the details what he was saying cause every other word was the F -word," the teen's father, Stephen Mitchell, told investigators noting "he was in a total rage."

When Meyer was asked by investigators if he used profanity or foul language during the encounter, Meyer said "I might have. I was a military sailor for a while, and I may have dropped a few F-bombs in there," according to the report.

When the 17-year-old's mother told sheriff's Sgt. Jeffrey Wingard that she wanted a copy of the body camera video, Wingard initially told the mother that the camera malfunctioned. He then told the teen's mother that Meyer did not have his camera turned on, the Internal Affairs report said.

The Internal Affairs investigation also found that Meyer failed to follow general orders.

In handing out the suspension to Meyer, Chief Deputy Brian Henderson said that even after Meyer determined that gunshots were not fired, he behaved in an unprofessional manner.

"By your admission, you chose to give the driver "an (expletive)-chewing" during which you repeatedly used profane-laced and offensive language," Henderson wrote in the suspension notice. "You continued using vulgar language during a phone conversation with the driver's father which you described as "unproductive.'"

Henderson also called Meyer's attention to how serious a matter it was not having his body camera turned on.

"This oversight resulted in a lack of recorded documentation for this incident which included allegations of use of force," Henderson wrote. "This undermined the transparency and accountability we uphold as fundamental principles within the Volusia Sheriff's Office."

Internal Affairs investigators cleared Meyer of the use of force allegation.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Foul-mouthed deputy suspended for unleashing tirade of expletives at 17-year-old boy