3-year-old put in jail for potty-training trouble by Daytona Beach Shores police officer

A 3½-year-old child having difficulty getting potty trained was brought to the Daytona Beach Shores Public Safety Department on successive days last October and placed in jail, a high-ranking officer told a caseworker during an interview.

On the second occasion, Oct. 6, 2022, the child was also handcuffed.

"He was crying. I was getting the response I expected from him," Lt. Michael Schoenbrod told the Department of Children and Families caseworker, body-cam footage from a Volusia County Sheriff's Office deputy shows.

The boy promised to never again poop his pants, Schoenbrod said in the interview.

It is unclear whether Schoenbrod and another high-ranking Daytona Beach Shores officer, Det. Sgt. Jessica Long, who brought their child to the jail on Oct. 5, faced discipline from the city. The News-Journal has obtained copies of memos written by Public Safety Director Michael Fowler to each informing them of a professional standards investigation.

But the results of any such investigation have not yet been made public.

Fowler said in an email Tuesday he is consulting with the city attorney before commenting.

And the actual records cannot be released because they have been "sealed by a judge," City Clerk Cheri Schwab said in an email Friday.

The case Schwab cited lists Schoenbrod "et al." as plaintiffs and the State Attorney's Office "et al." as defendants, but is inaccessible to the public. It is dated March 24.

A second, separate case was filed by Schoenbrod and Long against R.J. Larizza, the state attorney, on May 18. More information is accessible about this case, but the initial filing and several subsequent motions are marked as confidential.

In that May 18 filing, Schoenbrod and Long petitioned the court for a writ of mandamus − essentially legalese that means they are asking a judge to impose an order on Larizza. What kind of order? That is unknown.

Further complicating matters, Mark Weinberg, court administrator for the 7th Judicial Circuit, wrote in an email Monday: "The judge to whom the two civil cases are assigned (Circuit Judge Mary Jolley) has not sealed them."

Antonio Jaimes, an attorney with the Volusia County Clerk of Court's Office, wrote in an email that the cases "are confidential due to motions for confidentiality filed within the cases."

He cited rules that govern court records, which he said are separate from Florida public records law, and case law dictating clerks must treat such motions as confidential pending the court's ruling.

A public records advocate challenged the city officials' assertion that the motion for confidentiality precludes them from making the internal-affairs documents public.

"A pending motion to determine confidentiality of court records does not have any impact on the city's IA (internal affairs) investigation," Michael Barfield, director of public access initiatives for the Florida Center for Government Accountability, wrote in an email Tuesday. "A party cannot make a record that is subject to production under Chapter 119 (of the state public records law) confidential by merely filing a lawsuit requesting confidentiality and then not setting a hearing on the motion."

Barfield wrote that he believes the clerk's attorney, in keeping court records filed by Schoenbrod and Long confidential, is being "cautious," acknowledging the rule requiring the clerk to accept the request for confidentiality until the judge rules on the motion.

"However, that doesn't make what the petitioner is doing legally correct," Barfield said. "In my view, this is an abuse of the provision of that rule because the (Schoenbrod-Long) party knows the clerk will treat it as confidential until such time as a hearing is held."

Lt. Schoenbrod says he put 4-year-old in jail, as well

Schoenbrod and Long live together and have the child together.

Neither they nor their attorney, Michael Lambert, responded to requests for comment.

While the city has not made public any internal affairs findings, Both Schoenbrod and Long had 20 hours of leave without pay on their May pay stubs. For the first six months of 2023, Schoenbrod took home $48,679, and Long made $47,754.

Schoenbrod told the caseworker he has used the put-a-child-in-jail technique before.

Approximately nine years earlier, he said he disciplined his 4-year-old son similarly after misbehaving at preschool.

Schoenbrod said he had asked the boy whether he had hit a girl and the boy said yes. So Schoenbrod then told the boy he puts people in jail when they hit other people.

"I took him to the jail and he sat there. And I watched him ... and he was crying and everything, and to this day, if you mention, like, that incident, he’s just like, ‘I would never do that again.’ It was effective," Schoenbrod said. "So that’s why I did it with this. He didn’t hit anybody, but I figured the same thing, discipline. And he didn’t want to go back, so ...”

Later, on the hourlong body-cam footage, most of which contained scrambled video, Long could be heard calling the investigation "insane," while Schoenbrod responded: “It’s just disgusting that somebody would drag our family through the mud like this.”

A Department of Children and Families spokeswoman acknowledged a request for comment Tuesday but otherwise did not respond.

Also, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman said she received a June 6 News-Journal request for any investigation of Schoenbrod and Long agents may have completed and that the request has been forwarded to the public records department for processing, which is apparently ongoing.

The fight to open records

For months, Daytona Beach Shores-area residents who have seen the body-cam video or heard about it have been asking City Hall for records related to the matter, but the results of investigations remain largely shrouded in secrecy.

On Feb. 4, Lonnie Groot, a Shores resident and the former city attorney, requested documents related to any officer confining a child in a jail cell at the city's Public Safety Building and investigations into "alleged child abuse by an officer" with Daytona Beach Shores.

He has continued questioning the lack of transparency, including the fact that if the city was, indeed, party to a legal petition and ordered to keep records of the internal affairs investigation secret, why the city commission hasn't discussed the matter in a public meeting.

"This whole matter just does not pass the basic smell test from a transparency and governmental openness perspective," Groot wrote Daytona Beach Shores city attorney Becky Vose.

"I cannot imagine the City Commission tolerating and standing mute about a city employee bringing a child to City Hall and punishing the child in the City Commission chambers," Groot wrote. "Why, then, does the City Commission act so meek, powerless and non-transparent as to this matter involving law enforcement officers?"

Mark Dickinson, a former South Daytona police officer who now calls himself a civil-rights activist and goes by the Internet handle of James Madison Audits, requested the Volusia County Sheriff's Office body-cam footage from the Division of Children and Families interview and posted it on YouTube in March. The video is now marked as "private."

When he requested the findings of the professional standards investigation against Schoenbrod and Long, Dickinson said he was sent an estimate of $3,398.40 − approximately 40 hours of work at $84.96 per hour − to review and redact the materials.

"It's a severe matter of public interest when you have strong allegations of that kind," Dickinson said. "Rumors are being brought to you by fellow law enforcement ... and you want to make sure the stuff they're saying isn't true."

Dickinson said he understands that the child's name and the officers' home address may be protected, but those redactions shouldn't make the entire matter − including the internal affairs investigation − confidential.

Barfield, of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said Tuesday his organization is planning to file a motion seeking hearings on why the records are confidential and a copy of the motion seeking confidentiality regarding the incident with the ultimate goal being to have the records unsealed.

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This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Child handcuffed, locked up by police lieutenant for pooping his pants