An animal control officer from South Carolina who was caught on camera shooting a non-aggressive dog has been fired from his job. But his sudden termination has nothing to do with the innocent animal he murdered. Instead, it has to do with his alleged online behavior.
Sergeant Geoffrey Brown made local headlines in December 2022 after he was accused of animal cruelty when deeply disturbing video of him killing the canine point blank with a shotgun was circulated online.
Brown and lieutenant Timothy Byrd were responding to a call made by a 92-year-old woman, who said three dogs had trespassed into her backyard and she was scared. “I’m really afraid to go outside,” she told police, according to phone records dated December 17, 2022. “They’re just big ol’ dogs!”
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The canines were wearing collars and were believed to be someone’s pets. But rather than, say, locate the animals’ owners, Brown chose to fatally shoot one of them instead.
Per local media outlet FITSNews:
Unbeknownst to Byrd and Brown, their actions were recorded on two separate police cameras and sent to S.C. eighth judicial circuit public defender Chelsea McNeill — who was notified of the incident by an unrelated witness.
Following her 11-month investigation across multiple departments, McNeill concluded that Byrd and Brown had committed felonious animal cruelty for the unprovoked shooting of these canines. Her argument? That a civilian would be arrested for doing the exact same thing under the exact same circumstance.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Brown first started working for the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office in 2019. Prior to that he worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher and an EMT.
Last month, Sheriff Don Reynolds took to Facebook to defend him when FITSNews published an exposé about the dog-killing incident.
“These dogs were known to have put several citizens in harm’s way and had previously killed multiple pets of citizens within the area,” Reynolds rebutted on December 7. “Deputies responded and took measures to protect the safety of our citizens by shooting one of the dogs.”
He went on to say the video recorded by the officer’s body cams “do not tell an entire story or give you the entire picture” and that Brown and Byrd have been unfairly “singled out as villains.”
Three weeks later, however, Reynolds appeared to do a 180 when Brown was abruptly fired on December 30.
The reason?
It’s unclear.
The department said he was let go due to “Violation of agency policy not involving misconduct. Violation of use of social media policy. Violation of unbecoming conduct policy.”
But according to FITSNews, Brown was fired after someone leaked his alleged Grindr photos online. The photos, which Queerty has not been able to verify, appear to show the officer naked in a hot tub, with the app’s watermark visible in the corner.
A source claiming to work within the department tells the outlet that staff members were told Brown was fired “because of inappropriate pictures sent over Facebook Messenger, but we think they’re trying to save face because they don’t want people to know it was over Grindr.”
It’s not known who leaked the alleged photos or how they were obtained in the first place.
In a statement, McNeill, the public defender who initially accused Brown of animal cruelty, said, “It’s so sad. Apparently, murdering dogs doesn’t get you fired but having alleged gay material online in your personal life does.”
Brown has not commented on his firing or the alleged photos of him in the hot tub, but he did post this anti-queer meme on his Facebook page this week:
Obviously, it’s not OK to leak a person’s private photos online. It’s also not OK to fire someone for allegedly being on Grindr. Nor is it OK to commit acts of animal cruelty. Everyone here has acted poorly.
Reynolds also hasn’t commented on Brown’s termination. Instead, he appears to be trying to pivot away from the whole scandal by focusing on his bid for reelection as Sheriff of the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office.
“I pledge, along with all of my team, to continue to represent you with ethical professionalism,” he said in his announcement a few weeks ago. “We stand to protect and serve.”
Exactly who he stands to protect, however, appears up for debate.
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nope1
How is that Facebook post an anti queer meme at all? It’s entirely accurate. Don’t pretend people actually support changing mothers and Father’s Day, especially gay people. We don’t. Anybody who does IS a fool, like the Facebook post says
still_onthemark
Special Person Day sounds like it’s for a mentally ‘challenged’ person. How about Parental Unit Day?
LeBlevsez
When I was young, after school got out for the year, my parents would have Kid’s Day. It was like a second Christmas in the summer, and was to express to my siblings and I that we were valued and loved, as we had expressed to them on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
How dare they? I’m sure they were not aware that they were venturing beyond your rigid holiday requirements.
You be sure to just keep on saving the world from itself, you hear?
nope1
Make up whatever day you want, my post was about them calling it anti queer to be against the destruction of mothers and Father’s Day just because some triggered people demand they change the names. It’s not.
Kangol2
The headline really does all the work for this story, but great reporting. Something tells me the dog-murderer won’t be spending too much time mulling over that killing but will be agonizing over the fact that someone else, probably some closet case in the department, spotted his profile on Grindr.
Baron Wiseman
Animals are not murdered. Human beings are murdered; not animals.
Did Ron DeSantis get your dictionary too!!! LOL!
still_onthemark
@Baron: Fetuses aren’t murdered either.
Baron Wiseman
@still_onthemark
The Killing Of A Viable Fetus Is Murder – Keeler v. Superior Court
Approximately half of the states have enacted fetal homicide, also known as feticide, statutes while the remaining states retain the “born alive” rule.
inbama
I just checked out Geoffrey Brown’s FB, and he seems to be a dog-lover.
ShaverC
If you read his boss’s statement about the shooting of the dog, it was a menace that had killed many animals and pets in the neighborhood. Justified. Many jobs come with “decency clauses” and maybe the n@de pic was too much.
connor larkin
10-50 FAMILY dogs and pets killed, murdered daily by 18,000 USPDs because they can. Fifth Amendment challenges upheld due to ‘unreasonable search’, e.g. Buffalo, Racine PD detectives bragged who had the most dog kills.