A Florida police chief is speaking out after an internal investigation found that a former officer allegedly used police databases to find women to date.
According to Bradenton Police Chief Melanie Bevan, the officer, a man named Leonel who worked for the department for about 12 years and held a supervisory role, searched the databases for women who were not connected to any police case. Bevan said at a news conference that he then reached out to roughly 150 women by social media, phone calls and visits to their homes. She said he was persistent and sometimes successful in getting dates.
The chief said the internal investigation began in June 2018 after the officer showed up at the home of a woman’s parents saying he was responding to a domestic dispute. The parents knew of no such incident and did not let him speak to their daughter. When a commander asked about the visit, the officer reportedly said the woman’s headlight was out.
Bevan said the officer resigned in October 2018. She said he “betrayed the trust of this department and the citizens of Bradenton.” The department says it has since tightened its database auditing practices.
The FBI is reviewing the matter, and no criminal charges had been reported at the time. NBC News said it could not reach the former officer for comment, and no response from him had been made public.
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