Last year, a school resource officer at a Key West middle school investigated several incidents involving guns.
Now the Key West Police Department is taking action, based on an internal investigation.
Police Chief Donie Lee has proposed firing Officer David Hall. The officer has requested a pre-determination hearing, which has not been scheduled. He is currently suspended with pay.
According to the department's investigation, Hall received a report last fall that a photo was circulating on the social media app Snapchat of a student at Horace O'Bryant Middle School posing with a gun. Hall reportedly met with the student and his parents.
Later, the same photo circulated again with a threatening message overlaid. No police report was written.
Soon afterward, a different student brought a small orange plastic cap gun and "displayed the cap gun in the courtyard of the school," according to the report. School officials and Hall were notified. The student was suspended for five days, then expelled from the middle school and transferred to an alternative education program.
Hall "has stated adamantly to the FBI and the State Attorney's Office" as well as his officers that he wrote a juvenile civil citation and police report about the cap gun, the internal report states. But no such citation or report could be found in department records.
Based on Hall's statements, the police chief relayed "untruthful accounts" to the media, the Monroe County School District, the State Attorney's Office, according to the report.
