When Memphis police disbanded its notorious street team after officers beat a man to death in January 2023, then-West Palm Beach Police Department Chief Frank Adderley went on national television to defend a similar unit he created.
“We're not getting calls in our city to disband it. I think if you go to some of these community meetings, they want more of them. They don’t want less,” Adderley told ABC News about West Palm’s Gang & Habitual Offender Suppression Team, or GHOST.
But over a year later, Adderley quietly dissolved GHOST after officers led a high-speed chase into Boynton Beach that killed a pregnant woman and her mother on July 30, 2024. Instead of stopping to help, the seven officers silently turned around and told nobody what happened, prosecutors said.
Adderley put the seven pursuing officers, five of whom were in GHOST, on leave. In June 2025, Palm Beach County prosecutors charged the officers with official misconduct and leaving the scene of a crash involving death. They have all pleaded not guilty and were fired.
A WLRN investigation reveals how the GHOST unit and the pursuing officers exhibited warning signs well before the Boynton chase and crash that killed Jenice Woods, 27, Woods’ unborn child, and Marcia Pochette, 57. The reporting found lapses in West Palm Beach’s oversight including lax discipline of the now-indicted officers.
Started at the end of 2019, GHOST investigated drug and gun cases, and quality of life reports in the city. Officers often worked undercover and prowled “high crime” neighborhoods to gather intelligence and serve warrants, according to the department.
GHOST grew out of a mandate by West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James to squeeze violent crime out of a city booming in population and investment. Adderley, who pushed for aggressive police units throughout his career, was on board.
WLRN reviewed the disciplinary records of the seven officers in the fatal 2024 chase. The lion’s share of issues came from the three officers accused of driving in the Boynton chase: Austin Danielovich, Pierre Etienne and Christopher Rekdahl. WLRN found:
- On July 30, 2021, exactly three years before the Boynton crash, Etienne and two other GHOST officers pursued a 17-year-old boy in a stolen car, who went on to crash and kill four people near Palm Beach Gardens. The officers said they stopped the chase early and bore no responsibility for the fatal crash, but two lawsuits later questioned West Palm’s role.
- In summer 2022, Rekdahl followed and detained a West Palm man over a minor traffic offense, before letting him go. The man claimed Rekdahl acted unlawfully. The department cleared and later promoted Rekdahl.
- In late 2022, a woman in Martin County accused Danielovich of hitting her with his car and then driving away, while off duty. Police planned to bring charges against Danielovich. No charges were ultimately filed, but West Palm police supervisors learned Danielovich was under investigation and took no action, WLRN found.
Etienne and Rekdahl were members of GHOST. Danielovich was in the bicycle unit but frequently worked with GHOST.
GHOST coincided with a surge in department insurance payouts for car crashes and misconduct — from less than $900,000 in the two years before GHOST, to roughly $4.2 million in the three years after GHOST, insurance records obtained by WLRN show.
The mayor fired Adderley in October 2024 in relation to allegations of financial mismanagement. Adderley, who did not respond to numerous requests for comment, insisted he did nothing wrong.
Adderley’s top command staff, captains responsible for administering discipline and operations, were placed on leave the same month and investigated for allegedly abusing overtime pay to inflate their salaries.
To report this story, WLRN reviewed more than 1,200 pages of personnel files, disciplinary documents, court records and emails. WLRN spoke with current and former West Palm Beach police officials, criminal defense and civil attorneys, and regular Floridians who claim they were mistreated by the West Palm officers. WLRN also reviewed body camera and cellphone video footage, plus 911 and dispatch audio.
The findings come as West Palm’s new chief, Tony Araujo, a 42-year veteran of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office who was hired in October 2024, tries to turn the page from the Adderley years.
“ We might have lost our way for whatever reason. We found some of those lapses. We've gotten back on that path forward and service delivery is where it needs to be,” Araujo said in an interview. “I'm a fixer, right? That's what I've done my whole career.”
While Araujo has made headway on culture and staffing, he faces challenges: a legal effort by the Adderley captains to get their jobs back, damaged trust with the community and reviving a street crimes team that sheds the specter of GHOST.
The chief declined to comment on both the overtime case and the Boynton chase.
Last month, Junel Pochette and Devin Woods, the two widowers from the chase, filed a federal lawsuit against the City of West Palm Beach and each of the seven indicted officers.
They alleged that the city was negligent in training its officers and allowed West Palm GHOST officers to engage in what the lawsuit says was "colloquially known within the department as a ghost (sic) chase.”
These were surreptitious, high-speed pursuits “in an intentional effort to evade departmental scrutiny and circumvent prohibitions against non-emergency or covert pursuits,” the suit alleges.
Pochette and Woods are also suing each of the officers individually. They’re seeking more than $10 million in damages.
All seven officers pleaded not guilty in their criminal case, and are being legally supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, West Palm Beach Lodge 2. The union president, Adam Myers, did not respond to questions about the Boynton chase.
“Mr. Danielovich maintains his innocence,” said Ari Goldberg, a criminal defense attorney representing the former officer. Goldberg declined to comment on the other findings by WLRN.
Etienne’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Ian Goldstein, an attorney representing Rekdahl in his criminal case, called accusations against Rekdahl untrue and inaccurate. He did not clarify which or why.
“My client looks forward to clearing his name in court,” Goldstein wrote in an email to WLRN.
Frank Adderley: From Raiders to GHOST
A homegrown cop from Fort Lauderdale, Adderley went to West Palm Beach after a nearly 40-year career in Broward County.
Adderley did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
In 1980, he started as a Fort Lauderdale Police patrolman. He went on to become sergeant over an infamous street crimes unit, known as the “Northwest Raiders.”
In plain clothes and bulletproof vests, the Raiders conducted undercover drug buys, harassed drug dealers on the street and boasted high arrest numbers in the city’s mostly Black northwest section, according to a 1986 South Florida Sun-Sentinel article.
Supporters praised their tough-on-crime approach, while critics saw their tactics as ineffective and harmful.
Police units come in many forms. The most common ones focus on different methods of policing, like SWAT or K-9, or specific types of crime, like homicides or sex offenses. They became prevalent in the mid-20th century as departments professionalized, according to a 2024 paper by Janne Gaub, a criminology professor at UNC Charlotte.
Teams like Raiders and GHOST are considered “proactive policing” units, or street crimes teams. They typically focus on gun crimes and/or quality of life issues, such as trespassing, loitering or homelessness. At its most effective, the units foster relationships with community members to solve crimes and address their root causes, a 2017 federally-funded study said. At its least effective, they overly rely on aggressive tactics and arrests.
In recent decades, major police scandals have stemmed from street crimes teams in recent decades, such as the SCORPION team in Memphis that beat Tyre Nichols to death and the Gun Trace Task Force in Baltimore that terrorized and robbed residents and inspired an HBO network series.
“Giving roving teams of police officers added authority, elite status, a long leash and a vague mandate is a formula for abuse,” longtime criminal justice journalist Radley Balko wrote in an essay after Nichols’ killing.
When Adderley was elevated to Fort Lauderdale police chief in 2008, he expanded Raiders into a new, citywide street crimes team. Within a few years, he was forced to reckon with the fallout.
In 2010, Adderley fired a veteran Raiders cop over allegations the officer had sex with an informant while on duty.
A year later, Broward prosecutors indicted three cops on the team for instigating and then lying about a car chase. The man they chased said the Raiders cops rammed his car from behind and beat him — which was excluded from officers’ reports. A jury later deadlocked on the charges, then a judge acquitted the officers.
By 2016, Adderley left to work as a top deputy in the Broward Sheriff’s Office. He was removed during the shakeup following the 2018 Parkland school shooting.
In spring 2019, newly-elected West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James demoted city police Chief Sarah Mooney and tapped Adderley to take over.
The city experienced a surge in homicides two years prior, 25 in 2017 and 27 reported in 2018, according to FBI crime statistics. They represented double digit increases compared to the years before.
At a press conference explaining the demotion, the mayor said business leaders were concerned by “the detrimental impact on their ability to attract business this year when West Palm Beach is tainted with violent murders.”
Adderley quietly rolled out GHOST just before the start of 2020.
WLRN filed multiple records requests for documents about GHOST. West Palm’s department responded that it had no written objectives, training manuals or specific policies for GHOST. An organizational chart the agency provided showed 10 total officers split into two teams with a sergeant over each. A lieutenant and a captain oversaw all of GHOST.
Based on emails and news reports, GHOST focused on the north end of the city, the impoverished Tamarind corridor where violence often occurred.
In September 2020, the city touted a drop in homicides and shootings compared to the year before, according to a press release. Cities across the country saw drops in crime in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people inside.
The press release credited GHOST with reducing violent crime. Less than a year later, a GHOST-initiated chase ended in a crash that killed four people.
Pierre Etienne: A fatal crash and GHOST officers
GHOST detective Pierre Etienne bolted out of his police cruiser towards the fiery wreck.
“Everybody in that car I don’t think is alive anymore,” a bystander told the officer, pointing to a column of smoke billowing from an overturned SUV.
Etienne exhaled sharply, then ran. He followed a trail of debris leading to another wrecked car and tried to help the driver who was still alive, at the intersection of PGA Boulevard and Beeline Highway.
It was just after 4 p.m. in Palm Beach Gardens on July 30, 2021, a year and a half since the GHOST unit began.
Etienne, a Royal Palm Beach High School graduate and West Palm officer since 2016, was one of the first cops on the scene of the t-bone collision that killed four people, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office report stated.
It wasn’t a stroke of luck that a West Palm cop happened to be near a fatal wreck in another jurisdiction. Minutes before, Etienne and two other GHOST officers were chasing the teenager who crashed into the SUV.
The connection between the fatal crash and GHOST officers, specifically Etienne, has not been previously reported.
Jay'Oni Leonard, 14, and Alexia Simpson, 17, were passengers in the stolen car and died in the crash. In the SUV and killed were Elizabeth "Beth" Anderson, a 62-year-old PBSO employee, and her passenger, George Nienhouse, 65.
Earlier that day, Christopher Garrett, Jr., a teenager in foster care from West Palm Beach, snuck away from a group home outing at a Riviera Beach water park. He and two friends stole a patron’s purse, which had a key fob to a Nissan Rogue, and headed out.
Garrett, Leonard and Simpson took a joyride, with Garrett driving, as Riviera Beach police reported the car stolen.
When the 17-year-old Garrett entered West Palm, he soon caught the attention of three GHOST officers, including Etienne. They each drove unmarked cars and conducted “undercover surveillance” of Garrett, PBSO’s report stated.
During that time, Riviera Beach police filled in the GHOST officers on the identities of the missing teens and that they stole an unoccupied car, according to lawsuit documents.
The GHOST cops turned their lights on and tried to flag Garrett for a traffic stop at Beeline Highway and Jog Road. Garrett didn’t stop and the officers pursued, documents showed.
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West Palm’s rule on pursuits says officers should only chase a suspect if they believe a “forcible felony” has occurred or if there’s a threat to public safety — with a supervisor’s approval. They also have to consider whether the suspect can actually be caught, and whether they know the identity of the suspects — if they can be apprehended later.
Two lawsuits filed by family members of Anderson and Nienhouse said the GHOST officers disregarded those rules.
They started to chase with “full knowledge of the identity of the juveniles in the target vehicle and in direct contravention of both the written (West Palm Beach Police Department) policy on pursuits and common-sense safety considerations,” Anderson’s daughter alleged in a Jan. 30, 2024 court filing. The suits alleged wrongful death.
Attorneys for both cases declined to comment for this story.
The City of West Palm Beach settled with Anderson and Nienhouse’s family members for $300,000.
Obituaries for both Nienhouse and Anderson remembered them as loving parents and grandparents to their respective families. A 25-year employee of PBSO, Elizabeth “Beth” Anderson was a few years short of retirement.
“Though she was only 62 years young when she was taken from us, nothing excited her more than looking forward to summers off so she would be able to take care of her beloved grandchildren,” her obituary said.
Three years: Two fatal GHOST chases
While trying to parse the events of the 2021 chase, WLRN found conflicting statements in the officers’ accounts.
At 4:05 p.m., about a minute after starting the pursuit, Neil Sterk and Casey Stripling — the other two GHOST cops — said they cut the chase off at Northlake Boulevard, which was three-and-a-half miles from the crash site. The officers said they waited there and notified other police.
Captured on body camera footage, Stripling told another cop something else: “We followed it down just to make sure it was out of the area, and we walked right into this.”
No other mention is made of West Palm officers potentially following Garrett after the chase ended.
“We did look into whether it was a contributing cause to the crash, however, evidence determined the pursuit stopped at Northlake and Beeline Highway,” a PBSO spokesperson told WLRN in an email.
According to his report, Etienne was “6-8 cars” behind them and stuck in traffic, so he didn’t participate in the stop and did not turn on his body camera nor his emergency lights.
Etienne also wrote he didn’t see where the car drove off to and waited with officers before driving down Beeline and discovering the crash.
When the first 911 call about a crash went out at 4:09 p.m., Etienne was on the scene one minute later, the PBSO investigation said.
PBSO’s investigation pointed squarely at Garrett’s behavior. He had marijuana in his system and was driving roughly 98 miles per hour when he crashed. He pleaded guilty to four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of grant theft. He’s serving a 15-year prison sentence.
Reached by phone at a Florida state prison, Garrett told WLRN he has few memories from the crash. His injuries were severe. Doctors had to drill a hole in his skull due to brain swelling and trauma, he said.
He said Alexia Simpson, the passenger in the stolen car, was his girlfriend at the time, and they were planning to have kids together.
“ In my head at the time, I guess that I was trying to get her to safety,” Garrett said.
Garrett, now 21, said it doesn’t make sense to him that he would keep speeding if the cops were not still chasing him.
“If I (had) seen in the mirror that they fell back, then me, I would be trying to pull the car over or the get the car to a safe distance to jump out,” Garrett said.
When he read the reports later on that said he ran a yellow light and crashed, Garrett said: “All I can think is I had to be in fear that I was being chased.”
Christopher Rekdahl: West Palm man says cop wrongfully followed, detained him
Angel Ortiz, a skinny, bearded father, attends all of his son’s basketball games.
The 39-year-old West Palm Beach native taught his son, A.J., or Angel Ortiz, Jr., to play left-handed, so he would be more difficult to guard on the court. He records A.J.’s games and uploads them to social media; Ortiz can be heard cheering loudly in the background of the videos.
The morning of Sunday, July 10, 2022, was going to be no different, when Ortiz drove to pick up A.J.,to a tournament. Except on the way, Ortiz caught the attention of West Palm officer Christopher Rekdahl.
Heading towards the run-down apartments that Ortiz managed on Georgia Avenue he realized Rekdhal was following him.
“ I don't see no lights, no nothing. I'm looking behind me. Nothing,” Ortiz said.
Once he arrived at the apartments, Ortiz got out of his car, a Black Mercedes-Benz with tinted windows. He saw his son standing outside and told A.J. to start recording with his cellphone, as Rekdhal approached in a police cruiser.
Rekdahl got out, beckoned Ortiz to come over, and immediately put Ortiz in handcuffs.
“I tried to pull you over, bro,” Rekdahl can be heard saying on the video, “Illegal window tint.”
The officer said that Ortiz sped away from him on Lake Avenue.Rekdahl then placed Ortiz up against the car and searched his pockets.
“What is going on?” Ortiz asked. He repeatedly asked Rekdahl to get a supervisor and told his wife to call 911. The two men argued over whether Ortiz had a license, and the video cut off after Rekdahl led him away.
Rekdhal detained him, put him in the backseat of his cruiser and searched Ortiz’s car.
The experience was in full view of his wife and son.
After Rekdahl’s sergeant arrived, Ortiz produced his driver’s license and the sergeant decided to let Ortiz go with no criminal charges. Ortiz instead received a traffic citation for his tinted windows.
Ortiz filed a complaint against Rekdahl alleging he was unconstitutionally searched and detained.
In an interview, he said he felt like Rekdahl profiled him based on his history. Ortiz has a prior felony conviction for battery and child neglect, which he said stemmed from a mental health crisis. A judge sentenced him to probation and later released him from it early.
The department’s internal affairs wing investigated Ortiz’s complaint and cleared Rekdahl of wrongdoing four days later, records show.
Ortiz filed a federal lawsuit against Rekdhal without a lawyer’s assistance. A judge dismissed the complaint on procedural grounds.
Three months after pulling over Ortiz, Rekdahl was promoted to the GHOST unit.
Disciplinary files obtained by WLRN show Rekdahl, a Jupiter High School graduate hired in 2015, received five complaints from citizens and used force 33 times in his career. The department cleared him in most instances.
In May 2023, supervisors suspended Rekdahl for eight hours for damaging his police cruiser three times in a year.
Not only did the encounter make him feel frustrated, Ortiz said it made him fearful for his teenage son, who is of age to get his own driver’s license.
“I don't even want my kids to get their license. I don't even know what they'll do in a situation like that,” Ortiz said, “A kid now shouldn't experience that.”
Austin Danielovich: Officer criminally investigated
When Austin Danielovich moved from his suburban Maryland police department to West Palm Beach in July 2021, supervisors saw him as a promising recruit for the department struggling to fill its ranks — a cop with existing experience and few reported issues.
But more than a year later , the officer was under criminal investigation. Buried in Danielovich’s personnel files, WLRN uncovered an incident that received little scrutiny and was not mentioned in his list of disciplinary actions.
According to a memorandum sent by West Palm’s Lt. Mark McGuire, the lieutenant heard that the Martin County Sheriff’s Office wanted to speak with Danielovich and considered him a suspect in a hit and run that occurred on Dec. 17, 2022, while he was off duty.
A Martin County investigator planned to bring charges against Danielovich, according to a police report and McGuire’s memo. A woman named Lachawn Miller, who was directing traffic near Indiantown for a shipment being escorted, accused Danielovich of striking her with his pickup truck when her back was turned. Danielovich had been trying to skirt traffic and they were arguing when he struck her, Miller said. Two witnesses verified her account, according to the deputy’s investigation.
The deputy verified her injury and Danielovich’s license plate number. Miller identified Danielovich from a photo line-up the deputy showed her, before she went to the hospital.
Danielovich had hired an attorney and, a week after the incident, sent in a sworn affidavit challenging Miller’s account.
“While the female was in close proximity to my car, I did not hit her,” Danielovich wrote. “I would never intentionally hit any person with my car.” He said he was driving to Sarasota with his family when it happened.
The next day, the agency decided not to bring criminal charges against the West Palm Beach cop, citing “conflicting statements.”
Other than McGuire’s memorandum, Danielovich’s West Palm files do not show any internal inquiry into the incident.
Miller declined to be interviewed for this story. She said the hit-and-run and the extended litigation that followed exacerbated her poor mental health. She sued him for damages, and the case was settled in August 2024.
The City of West Palm Beach did not respond to a request for comment about Danielovich’s investigation.
It wouldn’t be the last time Danielovich was accused of aggression with members of the public.
‘They terrify me’
Mack’s journey to Florida is one many transplants can recognize. Raised in a small town in Iowa, he visited the Sunshine State on vacation and fell in love with the weather.
In 2023, the youth had recently turned 21. After scraping together enough money, he moved near Tampa. He worked odd jobs and contemplated a modeling career.
WLRN is identifying Mack by his middle name because he fears reprisal for speaking out.
He has scars, mental and physical, from an encounter with Danielovich. He said he can’t drive through West Palm Beach without feeling a spike of anxiety.
“ I've never felt unsafe around cops until after that point. And I will not go back to West Palm unless I absolutely have to,” Mack said. “Like they terrify me up there. I'm not gonna lie.”
In May 2023, Mack and his friend visited downtown West Palm to try to see Morgan Wallen, a country singer they both liked and heard was going to be at a club, Clematis Social. They each paid $30 to get in.
The young men were drinking and boisterous. Wallen never showed up. Mack claimed they accidentally stepped into the VIP lounge. Bouncers grabbed them and removed them forcefully, he said, and they were taken outside. Things escalated.
“ We were trying to get our money back, trying to talk to somebody, but everybody was just being super aggressive with us,” Mack said. “And then a bunch of cops came over.”
Mack and his friend argued with the bouncers and the West Palm Beach police officers, which included Danielovich. He admitted he was mouthy with the officers but not violent or physical.
All of a sudden Mack was flying towards the ground.
“ I just get hip tossed and like my face was just pouring out blood,” Mack said.
According to a West Palm Beach use of force report, Danielovich said he attempted to de-escalate the situation. He said Mack pushed another officer, so Danielovich tried to arrest him and threw the 21-year-old to the ground.
Danielovich reported Mack was resisting arrest. He punched Mack in the face four times, according to the report. Danielovich then kneeled on Mack’s chest, and used his knee to strike the young man in the ribs twice, his report states.
”They kept saying, stop resisting, but I was not resisting. There was like seven officers, if I believe, on me, like literally grabbing both my arms and my legs,” Mack said. “There's literally nothing that I could have resisted.”
Mack was bandaged up and taken into a West Palm police car, a video shows. Mack was taken to the county jail. Officers charged him with battery on an officer, assault on an officer, resisting arrest with violence and trespassing, his court records show.
Two weeks later, Danielovich’s supervisors reviewed the incident outside of Clematis Social.
“Danielovich's response to the situation was not consistent with the Department's philosophy of de-escalation,” a West Palm sergeant wrote. His actions “indicate that he is in need of additional de-escalation training.”
The department found issues in three use of force incidents involving Danielovich.
Then-Assistant Chief Anthony Spatara was so alarmed that he ordered a review of “every use of force” incident by Danielovich for de-escalation and to ensure “actions are accurately reflected in the narrative” of his reports, according to a July 2023 document.
It’s unclear if the review was performed and, if so, what it found. Danielovich received a written reprimand and was mandated to complete remedial training.
The officer used force 18 times in his three years on duty at the department, his personnel files show.
Mack’s mom flew down from Iowa and helped secure a lawyer for her son.
Two months after his arrest, prosecutors dropped all charges against Mack, writing the evidence was “insufficient” to support prosecution.
On Sept. 20, 2023, Danielovich’s supervisor wrote he met all standards in his performance review, which allowed the officer to get a salary bump.
Danielovich “plans to apply for a position as a GHOST detective,” the supervisor wrote.
Boynton Beach: Fatal 2024 chase, officers indicted
On a sweltering Tuesday night in July, just after 8:10 p.m., nearly a dozen 911 calls came in to Boynton Beach’s emergency center about a horrific crash on Congress Avenue near Meadows Park — overwhelming the dispatchers.
A speeding sedan heading southbound on Congress had pulverized a turning car carrying Woods, 27 and pregnant, and her mother, Pochette, 57. Neither woman survived.
Witnesses, dispatchers and responding Boynton Beach cops focused on the driver, Neoni Copeland, who had scrambled out of the wrecked sedan and ran away on foot. Officers arrested Copeland and took him to the hospital.
Lying in a hospital bed, bandaged up and surrounded by Boynton cops, Copeland told the officers something they weren’t expecting to hear.
“They was behind me. I’m telling you they was behind me. From (I-95) … the whole time,” Copeland said “The police been on me since Palm Beach.”
Boynton Beach police hadn’t known West Palm was involved at all.
Immediately after the crash, one marked and two unmarked West Palm police cars had silently driven away, according to prosecutors. One car, driven by Rekdahl, swerved around the scattered wreckage and drove past the crash. Danielovich and Etienne turned the other cars around.
None of the seven officers stopped to help the women or even pursue Copeland further, according to the criminal complaint filed against them by the 15th Circuit State Attorney’s office.
The chase spanned about 13 miles. The drivers, Etienne, Rekdahl and Danielovich, also carried officers Michael Borgen, William Loayza, Darien Thomas and Brandan Stedfelt.
All the men were in GHOST, except for Danielovich and Stedfelt.
WLRN obtained the police department’s internal affairs investigative report, which reveals previously unreported details from the night.
Before the chase, a supervisor reported hearing GHOST cops communicating on their private radio channel about surveillance. By practice, the GHOST channel was unmonitored and not recorded by other divisions.
A patrol officer, Christian Maroto, had tried to pull over Copeland for a traffic stop for tinted windows. Maroto knew that GHOST officers wanted to interview the driver about a shooting from the spring. Copeland took off and Maroto didn’t pursue because he had “no reason to,” Maroto told internal affairs investigators.
All seven officers wore body cameras but none were turned on. They drove back to West Palm Beach afterwards.
Lieutenant Richard Dunleavy was the on-call sergeant over GHOST that night. After the chase and crash, he saw several of the GHOST officers.
“They went out of their way not to tell me anything,” Dunleavy told internal affairs investigators.
Hours after the crash, Dunleavy called the GHOST officers into his office and informed them there were two fatalities. The officers were “speechless and white,” the report said.
Two days after the crash, all seven officers were put on leave with pay by Adderley, and the internal investigation began.
On Aug. 6, 2024 the state attorney’s office began its criminal investigation.
Florida law states that an internal affairs investigation into an officer can’t be completed until the criminal investigation is wrapped up.
Once the state attorney’s office filed charges against the officers in June 2025, the internal probe was completed and they were fired.
The 11-month delay between being placed on leave and criminal charges allowed all seven officers to collect paychecks and unused vacation days. Once they were fired, West Palm Beach was contractually required to pay them out for their unused vacation and comp days: roughly $150,000 in total, files show.
Remembering Jenice and Marcia
The family of Jenice Woods and Marcia Pochette, as well as their civil attorney, Scott Smith, did not respond to WLRN’s requests for interviews.
The Palm Beach Post covered their two-hour funeral ceremony in August 2024.
“It’s been hard for me,” Junel Pochette said. “July 30, my life was changed. … Each day is like a dream for me. But I ask God for strength.”
Junel was Woods’ father and Pochette’s husband. He and his wife were supposed to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary that fall, he said.
Marcia Pochette was a native of Jamaica and worked as a home health aide. She was also a deaconess at House of God Delray Beach church, the paper reported.
Jenice Woods had a “smile that lit up a room,” her husband, Devin, reportedly said.
She graduated from Boynton Beach High School and Florida Atlantic University, and had accepted a teaching position at a charter school. One speaker described her as a perfectionist when it came to school, according to the Post.
New chief tries to make change
Chief Araujo’s office is bare, except for a name plate, files and a white board emblazoned with the words “Embrace the suck” in marker.
Araujo picked up the phrase from his time in the Marine Corps —an ethos about facing challenges head on.
“That's a hard thing for a lot of folks to do. Because we all suffer from what? The human condition,” Araujo said, in the cadence of a teacher. He sat for an hour-long interview with WLRN.
“If I don't see it, if I stick my head in the sand, then it ain't happening,” he said, while shaking his head. “No.”
The phrase was an apt analogy for the challenges Araujo faced upon taking the helm of West Palm.
Square-jawed and bespectacled, Araujo previously served as a colonel under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.
He had a talent for going into troubled organizations and sorting the good from the bad. Araujo was involved in 13 past mergers of cities and towns joining Palm Beach County Sheriff jurisdiction, he said.
After Adderley was fired in October 2024, West Palm’s mayor asked Bradshaw to send the city someone to stabilize the agency. Bradshaw called up Araujo, and he said yes.
Araujo said he started a systematic review of the department, from calls for service to investigations.
The chief said he learned that West Palm Beach’s accreditation from the state had been placed on probation. The department failed an inspection before he took over, he said.
Accreditation means a department has set rules and standards and follows them. On a practical level, being accredited allows for grants as well as lower insurance costs. On a symbolic level, having one means your department is considered professional and losing it can indicate something has gone astray.
As of April 2025, the department was re-accredited and removed from probation, Araujo said.
Captains suspended
One of Araujo’s first difficult leadership decisions was to suspend Adderley’s entire command staff, due to accusations they were abusing overtime pay.
The four suspended captains were Joseph Ahern, Troy Marchese, Theodore Swiderski and Dennis Wrobbel. Wrobbel was in charge of GHOST.
City audits, dating back to 2019, found issues with how the police department logged overtime and off-duty work, like security details. Under Adderley, captains — who don’t work hourly and instead earn a fixed annual salary — were allowed to mark their time cards with so-called flex hours to compensate for extra hours worked. For example, if the captains were at the scene of a homicide on Sunday night, they could take a few hours off on Monday morning to make up for it, or so the theory went.
Complaints from officers came in saying the captains logged flex time while working lucrative extra duty details, in order to boost their salaries.
The overtime issue was why Mayor James fired Adderley in October 2024.
Araujo sent the case to the state attorney’s office, which looked into it and did not find evidence that a crime occurred in February 2025. Araujo also sent the case to PBSO, which said the policies around tracking flex time were too confusing and contradictory to determine if criminal fraud happened, according to the Post.
“ I believe very, very strongly in due diligence, and I believe very, very strongly in due process, you can do two things at once, right?” Araujo said. “We had cause to do what we did.”
The captains sued, alleging that the process violated their rights under Florida’s Law Enforcement Bill of Rights law. They requested an injunction on the city’s internal affairs investigation, which the judge granted in late October. It meant the investigation cannot move forward until the lawsuit is resolved.
As a result, the captains have been on paid leave for more than a year, and Araujo has been unable to fill their positions.
Local FOP president Adam Myers said it’s created administrative strain in the agency. He called the ongoing debacle embarrassing.
“ I'd like to see the agency move forward. I'd like to see these employees have their reputations restored,” Myers said. “Let them finish out their career.”
'Don’t call it GHOST'
Araujo said he plans to bring back a street crimes unit to West Palm, as soon as it’s viable.
The chief said the units are an essential part of a metropolitan police agency. PBSO has several, he noted.
They work in plainclothes and undercover:detectives who are also on the street and responding to calls. They bridge what officers see on patrol and what detectives are working on in other units. They try to respond to a spate of crime with an investigative mindset, he said.
“Imagine having a group of 10 officers, overlapping seven days a week, that I can go ahead and place in some of these hotspot areas to go ahead and identify real repeat offenders,” Araujo said. This will help displace crime too, he said.
More than anything, Araujo stressed, the officers there will be thoroughly vetted and have oversight from their shift sergeants. The unit will be about solving cases and stopping crime, not harassing people, he claimed.
Asked how it differs from GHOST, he said standards and good leadership will prevail.
“ I don't want to use the word GHOST, okay? We haven't used that word here since I got here,” Araujo said. “It's a street crimes unit.”
