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.
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.
