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Inquiry: Officers were not gentlemen

Three Tampa police officers face disciplinary action after allegations of crude behavior and sexual harassment are upheld.

By SHANNON OLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published February 17, 2006

TAMPA - The three Tampa police officers passed gas and belched over the radio system, sometimes preventing other officers from communicating.

They made jokes about homosexual sex and bowel movements, sometimes in front of convenience store clerks. The officers, members of a plainclothes squad targeting street crime in east and central Tampa, behaved that way even after a supervisor told them to stop.

And they did it all in front of a female squad member who got so fed up, she transferred to another unit after eight months.

Then she went to internal affairs.

An IA investigation released Thursday upheld Officer Martha Gearity's allegations against officers Gregory E. Cotner, David K. Duncan and Ryan D. Sigler, who were found to have violated the department's code of conduct and its policy against sexual harassment.

The investigation, launched after Gearity left the unit in August, also found that the second-in-command, Cpl. David B. Watt, and the squad leader, Sgt. Gene Strickland, failed in their supervisory responsibilities by allowing such behavior over several months. Among the three officers' transgressions, according to internal investigators:

They "consistently" passed gas, burped and made sexual jokes, frequently over the police radio system. Officer Peter Charbonneau said it sometimes prevented other officers from speaking to each other, and he worried for officer safety "because of all the fooling around."

The three officers frequently talked about their sex lives and joked about having homosexual relations with each other.

In front of employees at a Race Trac on 50th Street, the officers likened Gearity's bowel movements to an atom bomb. They nicknamed her "Hiroshima." On one occasion, they laughed at her as she went to the restroom and asked her if she was menstruating.

Cotner had a picture of a penis on his camera phone, which was passed around to squad members, including Officer Brian Carpenter.

In July, Duncan and Sigler viewed what Gearity thought was a pornographic movie. Sigler and Duncan later told IA investigators it was a commercial featuring a bikini-clad Paris Hilton.

The officers discussed pornographic Web sites during roll call.

Watt did not try to stop the officers "until eight months had gone by," Capt. Marc Hamlin wrote to Assistant Police Chief Jane Castor in a recent report summarizing the investigation's findings. Even then, Watt simply issued an oral reprimand instead of bringing the issue to his superiors, as protocol demands.

Strickland, a 25-year department veteran, "never intervened or disciplined the offenders properly," Hamlin wrote.

Gearity told investigators that her time on the squad marked the lowest point in her life.

"I've never been so stressed at a job," she told an IA detective. "I never thought my fellow officers would treat me this way."

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy called the investigation "a very low moment for TPD."

"We shouldn't have to investigate this type of behavior," she said. "It's outrageous."

Cotner, 30, and Duncan, 28, joined the department at the end of 1999. Sigler, 24, has been a Tampa police officer for three years. Strickland, 49, was hired in 1981. Watt, 49, is a 21-year veteran.

Sigler, Duncan and Cotner acknowledged to IA investigators that they were vulgar and joked about sex. They said they did not realize it bothered Gearity, 31. They said Officer Sean Stuart, who acted as a witness for Gearity, was just as rude and inappropriate. IA officials have since launched an inquiry into Stuart, Gearity's boyfriend.

Sigler, Duncan, Cotner, Strickland and Watt were transferred as soon as the investigation began last year. The squad was disbanded and Strickland became a sergeant on the midnight shift. The other officers were moved to other squads, McElroy said.

Now that the allegations against the five have been upheld, Strickland is on desk duty and the others are working midnight patrol shifts.

All five officers will go through a disciplinary process, expected to take a few months, McElroy said.

First, each officer goes before a complaint review board, whose five members include police captains and officers. The board then recommends disciplinary action. The final decision on the officers' fate is up to police chief Steve Hogue and his executive staff, McElroy said.

The officers can go to the police union for help in disputing the IA findings or the discipline, McElroy said.

"I can tell you this," McElroy said. "Their discipline will reflect the department's disappointment."

Meanwhile, Watt is one of four officers under investigation after a hostage standoff last year in which the suspect and hostage died. Police officials say officers' bullets killed Gary Brewer and victim Tracy Wood during the Oct. 7 incident.

And a recent IA investigation found that while Watt was justified in shooting at a 45-year-old man during an undercover drug buy with Strickland in December 2004, the officers were at fault for using guns not authorized by the department.

Instead, they used guns they regularly carry while off-duty, McElroy said.

[Last modified February 17, 2006, 08:14:03]