Chief denies request to revisit complaint into officer’s comments

In a letter to the Orlando Police Department’s discipline oversight board the week he left the agency, Chief John Mina denied a request for investigation into an officer’s social media posts and said he could not terminate another officer, as the board requested.

However, in the letter dated Oct. 31, Mina — who was elected Orange County Sheriff on Tuesday — said he rolled out a new OPD social media policy in July, which prohibits officers from engaging “in support of any posting that includes harassment, threats of violence, or similar conduct.”

Mina also sent a written directive to his staff notifying them that a policy violation “may lead to discipline up to and including termination,” he said in the letter.

Citizen’s Police Review Board member Henry Lim said at its meeting on Wednesday that the policy was a victory, proving the committee has “teeth” to bring about changes— the lack of which is a criticism some have levied against the committee. The board doesn’t have the power to conduct independent investigations or impose discipline.

Mina said in May if he was elected Sheriff of Orange County “there will not be a citizen’s review board like there is at the city of Orlando.”

But newly selected Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón said Wednesday he values the board’s work.

“For us, I think there is value in the current format of this board,” Rolón said. “… the current status of the citizen’s review board and their current capabilities are fitting for the Orlando Police Department.”

Mina’s letter was in response to a Sept. 5 note to Mina, in which the review board asked for the termination of Officer Robert Schellhorn and requested a separate investigation into Officer Shawn Dunlap for social media posts that sparked a citizen complaint.

Schellhorn was suspended 80 hours without pay after a Facebook tirade, including racially charged comments that were in response to an initial post by Dunlap.

“Where are the athletes?… When will they use their voice to denounce violence aimed at Law Enforcement ??????? ” Dunlap wrote in the August 2017 Facebook post.

Schellhorn interjected in an argument between Dunlap and his nephew with a series of disparaging remarks.

“What exactly are the ‘black rights’ that these useless savages are standing up for???” Schellhorn wrote in one comment.

He also called Heather Heyer, the woman who died protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., an “asshole killed by another asshole” and described athletes who kneel during the national anthem as “overpaid thugs.”

OPD internal investigations manager Dwain Rivers told the Review Board in April Dunlap was used as a witness in Schellhorn’s case, barring him from a separate internal investigation.

“The board feels that since a complaint was filed against both officers, that findings should have also been determined for both officers,” the Review Board’s September letter stated. “It is for this reason that we recommend [the investigation] be amended or modified to also include findings as to Officer Shawn Dunlap.”

In his response to the Review Board, Mina told the board members that Dunlap’s actions were reviewed as part of Schellhorn’s investigation, and he was used as a witness because the allegations “were unfounded and occurred offduty; therefore a finding was not rendered.”

Mina said he would direct Internal Affairs to compose a letter to the board detailing their review of Dunlap’s conduct.

“I want to know how they reach the ‘unfounded’ and I still have a question as to why that never came to us,” Lim said. “It stemmed from a citizen’s complaint. That doesn’t mean that should just be dismissed without us having the opportunity to determine whether that dismissal was proper.”

“I’m disturbed by the fact that it was never presented to us in the first place.”

The September letter to Mina also requested that the agency terminate officers “in cases evidencing racial intolerance” or that include disparaging remarks about people with disabilities, like in Schellhorn’s case.

In one of Facebook comments, he called one user a “f---tard savage.”

Mina said in the letter that the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights and union agreement would not allow him to fire Schellhorn after a discipline had already been imposed.

Rolón said the letter “should bring closure” to a review of the Schellhorn case, which has been a topic at committee meetings for months and sparked outcry from community activists.

Also at the Wednesday meeting, the board unanimously voted to accept the findings in an internal investigation of Orlando Officers Richard Fink and Kevin Lopez, who were disciplined following an improper arrest and violations of conduct toward the public in January.

An internal affairs investigator said Fink violated the agency’s policy for conduct toward the public when he followed a man he said flicked him off, “repeating the same line of questioning, using insolent language, in a discourteous manner.”

Lopez then improperly arrested the man’s friend and charged him with resisting an officer without violence, according to the investigation.

Fink was punished to 120 hours of suspension without pay, for which he forfeited 55 hour of paid time off. Lopez was suspended 240 hours, according to internal affairs documents.