Officer Halpin has been placed on administrative leave.
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SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) A southwest Florida police officer has been suspended after his superiors watched a video of him tossing food to a handcuffed suspect at the county jail and then allowing the man to eat the food off the floor.
“Based on the actions in the video, I immediately initiated an internal investigation on Officer Halpin”, DiPino said.
The Herald-Tribune obtained a copy of the booking video Monday through a public records request after learning of what happened to Miller. Several moments later, the apparently drunk and handcuffed man slumps onto the floor to retrieve the dropped food, with Halpin pushing it toward the suspect with his foot.
A police report from Miller’s arrest shows Halpin spotted the homeless man sitting outside the front door of a Sarasota business where he had previously been charged with trespassing.
DiPino declined to address the officer’s work history.
Halpin might not be the only officer facing discipline, however, as several other deputies appear in the background observing his interaction with Miller, but doing nothing to stop it.
The deputies’ role, too, has become the source of an internal affairs investigation.
Halpin was hired by the Sarasota Police Department in 2006.
Miller, who has been arrested 22 times for various petty crimes since September, remains jailed because he is unable to make bail.
There’s no information on how Miller was treated during his previous arrests.
Randy Miller, 44, is a regular at the Sarasota County Jail.
The vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Michael Barfield, said he wasn’t surprised by the incident.
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In 2005, two advocacy organizations said Sarasota was the “meanest city” to homeless people.
