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‘Nothing Like Almost Shooting Someone To Set Your Head Right’: Fla. Sheriff’s Deputy Fired After Boasting Online

Florida sheriff’s deputy is out of a job after a pho­to sur­faced of him boast­ing about almost shoot­ing some­one to “set [his] head right.”

The Snapchat pho­to, which was post­ed June 25, shows Deputy Austen Callus, 23, sit­ting in a vehi­cle in plain clothes. The cap­tion read, “Nothing like almost shoot­ing some­one to set your head right lol. God I gate peo­ple with knives.” It is assumed that “gate” was a typo of the word “hate.” The inci­dent he was refer­ring to was a domes­tic vio­lence call involv­ing a knife.

On Thursday, Pinellas County Sherif Bob Gualtieri fired Callus, a patrol deputy, say­ing that the pho­to raised doubts about Callus’ mind­set when he’s out on the job.

“If you make that kind of a state­ment … you’re not going to be employed here as a deputy sher­iff because it calls into ques­tion your thoughts, your motives, and cer­tain­ly leaves the deputy and the agency in a very bad sit­u­a­tion if some­thing were to hap­pen in the future,” Gualtieri said, accord­ing to the Tampa Bay Times.

Too right, because had Callus actu­al­ly shot some­one … well.

Anyway, it turns out that the Good Samaritan who called Callus out was a friend of his who report­ed the pho­to, along with sev­er­al oth­ers that were tak­en while Callus was on-duty in his cruis­er as well as off-duty. The woman told the sheriff’s office that Callus’ girl­friend has recent­ly bro­ken up with him and that he’d been drink­ing heavily.

Around the same time, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ana­lysts caught wind of the pho­to, which was mak­ing rounds on social media.

“This is the kind of cop Pinellas coun­ty sheriff’s office hires?” wrote one Facebook user who shared the pho­to. “Someone who wants to shoot some­one just to get his head right?”

According to Gualtieri, through­out the inves­ti­ga­tion, Callus nev­er said any­thing that eased Gualtieri’s con­cern over what the pho­to depict­ed and said.

“So we can’t have some­body as a deputy who makes that kind of a state­ment … when he’s going through all this per­son­al tur­moil that’s going on,” Gualtieri added.

Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.

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