JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Nearly a year before Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer Brian Housend was arrested in Nassau County and accused of stalking and armed kidnapping of a woman he had a previous relationship with, Housend was investigated by JSO after he was accused of making racist and homophobic statements, according to documents obtained by News4JAX.
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When Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters announced the arrest of 20-year JSO veteran Housend on Sept. 12, the agency released a summary of internal investigations of Housend. The summary shows that since 2013, Housend has been the target of six internal investigations, including three citizen complaints from 2013-14 and three in-house complaints from 2015-23.
“That’s really more than you want to see,” said News4JAX Crime and Safety analyst Tom Hackney, who retired from JSO in 2020 as Director of Personnel and Professional Standards. “It’s not a lot. Because, you know, you get some officers who get out there and they work hard and sometimes they get complaints. I mean, obviously the ideal officer has zero complaints.”
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During a news conference, Waters acknowledged that while with JSO, Housend was the subject of multiple internal affairs investigations but added that they “didn’t rise to the level of termination.”
Housend wasn’t found culpable in any of the complaints before 2022, which included allegations of unnecessary force, unbecoming conduct, failure to take appropriate action, bias, mishandling evidence, failure to conform to work standards and improper action.
Details of those investigations aren’t available because JSO said, in accordance with state law, it purges records where no wrongdoing was found after one year. Records involving force are kept for four years.
But through a public records request, News4JAX was able to get more details about the accusations against Housend that led to two written reprimands.
A 35-page internal report showed that at the time of the most serious allegations in September 2023, Housend, 42, was a patrol officer working as a Training Academy Staff Instructor at the JSO Northeast Florida Criminal Justice Center (NEFCJC) located at the FSCJ campus.
JSO started looking into the veteran officer and former prosecutor with the State Attorney’s Office after a long-time administrative aide with JSO reported his potential misconduct. The aide told investigators they witnessed multiple incidents where Housend “spoke disparagingly to or about multiple other JSO employees,” including a same-sex couple that he worked with.
The JSO investigator looking into the claim spoke to multiple people who said that while talking about the couple, Housend said: “Those f****** crotch lickers just need to leave the [JSO NEFCJC] and it will be a better place...”
Another officer interviewed said they heard Housend go on a “rant” about the same-sex couple and referred to them as “bi*****” and “lesbians.”
When the JSO investigator spoke to Housend about the incident, he conceded that he vented about the couple because he was frustrated about daily issues at NEFCJC.
But Housend denied calling the couple “f****** crotch lickers” because that phrase was not in Housend’s “toolbox,” according to the investigator.
Ultimately, the JSO Internal Affairs investigator found that Housend did speak “disparagingly” about the couple and violated the Code of Conduct. The charge of “Improper Action” was sustained, meaning the “administrative investigation determined that there was a preponderance of evidence to support a violation of agency rules and/or regulations.”
For the violation, JSO issued Housend a Written Reprimand II, defined by JSO as “a more serious official censure of unacceptable acts or behavior, which are documented and administered in a positive manner. It could be given in association with other higher forms of discipline (Suspension without Pay, Reduction in Pay, Forfeiture of Leave Time, and/or Demotion).”
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During the same investigation, an officer accused Housend of referring to a corrections officer as a “mud fish” because the corrections officer “dated Black guys.” The corrections officer also testified that it appeared to them that Housend disliked the fact that she dated Black men.
The JSO investigator noted that “an online search of the phrase ‘mud shark’ yielded an entry on www.urbandictionary.com that defined it as ‘a Caucasian woman who dates/marries black men, to spite her friends and/or family, either consciously or subconsciously.’”
The corrections officer also said that Housend told her because she was a woman, she was not qualified to instruct at the JSO NEFCJC.
The corrections officer added that Housend “joked” and “laughed” during the comments and she was never offended or thought the comments were inappropriate because she thought Housend was a “nobody.”
The JSO investigator ultimately determined there was not enough evidence to support the allegation of improper action and classified it as “Not Sustained.”
2022 Investigation
In 2022, Housend was also investigated and reprimanded for statements that he made during a sworn deposition in a criminal case involving the arrest of a JSO corrections officer who was arrested by Housend for driving under the influence.
In August of that year, Housend was asked by a defense attorney, “Would you be surprised to learn that [the officer that administered the breath test during the DUI investigation] just previously testified here at his deposition that the only indicator of impairment that he noted was his face was flushed?”
“Would I be surprised to hear that? No, not at all,” Housend responded. “I would not be surprised at all that a corrections officer would come in and put one thing down for another corrections officer.”
The attorney then asked Housend what he meant by that.
“What do you think I mean by that?... Why do I think that? Does it surprise me? No, it doesn’t surprise me. You always look out after your family and your friends.”
He later told a JSO investigator that the corrections officer accused of DUI and the officer doing the breath test were “clearly friends,” and he was confident in the signs of impairment.
The investigator said Housend violated the Code of Conduct, referencing a section that states officers have an “obligation to be courteous and represent JSO in a positive manner.”
The investigator recommended the charge of “Unbecoming Conduct,” for which he received a written reprimand.
Current Charges
Housend’s arrest marked the 13th employee of the agency to be arrested in 2024.
Waters said Housend was suspended and put on leave without pay and will eventually be fired.
The charge of armed kidnapping is a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison and Housend is being held on a $1 million bond.
“Here we are today, looking at life, felony charges against this man, and you would want to kind of go back and look and see where his history’s been, just to get a full picture. And that doesn’t really paint as good of a picture as you would want,” Hackney said.
The investigation that unfolded earlier this month found that Housend sent dozens of threatening emails and messages to his ex.
“Brian you threatened to kill me. It is reasonable that I should not take you back. [Redacted] saw you take the rifle out of the gun safe that night in February when you hurt me. You can’t undo that,” one email from the victim to Housend reads.
The woman said earlier this month she saw what she believed to be a green laser shining into the window of her home and thought it was the kind of laser that could be attached to a gun. She said Housend has a large collection of guns that he owns for personal and professional use.
In another incident in July, the woman said Housend came to her house uninvited in his marked JSO patrol car, wearing his uniform, and began banging on the back door. After an argument when the woman refused to get back with him, Housend threatened to kill her and was “snapping and unsnapping the holster carrying his service pistol in an overtly threatening manner,” she told investigators. The woman was able to record the incident on her phone, according to the warrant.
Housend was originally hired by JSO in 2005 and since then, Waters said, he left JSO to work for other agencies, and then he was rehired on two separate occasions. At one point Housend became a lawyer and is still a member of the Florida Bar.
Housend is scheduled to appear next in court on Oct. 3.