Video shows Tampa Police Officer Gregory Damon at the detention center dragging a woman from the cop car and across the floor to the jail entrance. Credit: TampaPD/YouTube

Over Christmas break, Tampa Police Department quietly announced the firing of a cop caught on camera dragging a handcuffed woman on the ground during a jail booking.

According to a press release sent on the afternoon of Dec. 27, former Tampa police officer Gregory Damon violated multiple departmental policies while booking an inmate into the Orient Road Jail on Nov. 17.

Video shows Damon—who arrested a woman for trespassing in East Arbor Heights after someone called to report her sleeping outside Tampa Family Health Center—at the detention center dragging her from the cop car and across the floor to the jail entrance. Two Hillsborough County met him, picked up the woman and began the intake process.

Damon’s behavior was reported to TPD by Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, and the officer was immediately relieved of his duties when the investigation opened on Nov. 18.

Bodycam footage shows Damon threatening to drag the woman out of the patrol car after she refuses to get out at the jail. “”I want you to drag me,” she said in response.

A Professional Standards Bureau investigation found that “Rather than remaining professional, Damon himself made rude and derogatory comments to the arrestee.”

A 2013 TPD policy update says, “dragging an individual who is uncooperative is never an appropriate practice, with the standards bureau saying that Damon officially violated multiple policies including.

Searching,Transporting, and Booking of Prisoners
Courtesy to the Public
Reporting
Response to Resistance
Treatment of Persons in Custody
Standard of Conduct
Policies related to Body Worn Camera
Incompetence

“Professionalism is not only expected, it is demanded, in every encounter our officers have with the public, regardless of the arrestee being uncooperative or unpleasant in return. As law enforcement officers, we are held to a higher standard,” Interim Police Chief Lee Bercaw said in the release.

Bercaw was appointed to interim chief last month after controversial Chief of Police Mary O’Connor resigned following CL reporting that unearthed video of her using her position to get out of a traffic stop.

The incident came less than a year after Tampa Mayor Jane Castor hand-picked O’Connor to lead the department despite outcry from the community in response to O’Connor’s past history which included charges of battery on a law enforcement officer.

Damon’s termination also capped off a tumultuous year for Tampa police which in 2022 saw its officers come under scrutiny for making jokes after shooting a dog, not immediately disclosing a federal investigation into its crime-free multi housing program, using homophobic slurs amongst other infractions.