Orlando Sentinel

A Lake County deputy sheriff

- By Jason Ruiter Staff Writer jruiter@orlandosen­tinel.com

has been fired for waving his gun and Taser while quoting lines from Denzel Washington’s character in “Training Day.”

A Lake County deputy sheriff has been fired for playfully waving his firearm and Taser while quoting lines from Denzel Washington’s character in “Training Day,” an action movie about a corrupt cop, the Sheriff ’s Office said Thursday.

Deputy Dean Zipes, who was hired in December 2015, was fired April 21 for the incident and other allegation­s that he twice pulled out his firearm in an office setting and once made a motion to draw his service weapon at a pizza delivery boy, joking that he was alleged Orlando cop-killer Markeith Loyd.

Zipes was quoting a profanityl­aced scene in the 2001 movie about 4 a.m. Feb. 16 in which Washington’s character points two pistols at a rape suspect and rubs his weapons together in front of a police trainee, according to an internal-affairs report.

During the incident outside the sheriff’s Minneola substation at City Hall, 800 N. U.S. Highway 27, Zipes rubbed his Taser and pistol together — also near a trainee — in the direction of a nearby Kangaroo Express convenienc­e store, the report said. Several other deputies were present, according to the report.

Zipes said he doesn’t know what “sparked” his actions that morning, but that he was trying to be funny and was also on edge because of an armed robbery his sector responded to that night, the report said.

“I am not a rogue, reckless, dangerous, insane guy that slipped through the cracks at the hiring process and somehow got a gun and a badge,” he told investigat­ors, adding that he’s “just a guy going through some stuff.”

In a separate incident, investigat­ors also responded to complaints filed by Zipes about offensive comments he said were made to him by other deputies. But investigat­ors heard that Zipes also twice pulled out his firearm in an office setting, voiced racial slurs and “made a scene in a local Starbucks after not receiving free coffee.”

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