The hearing panel consisted of three members, an IIA lieutenant, a civilian oversight representative, and a county attorney serving as procedural adviser. AUSA Cartwright was present as a federal observer. Not participating, not testifying, but sitting at a table near the panel with a laptop open and a stack of federal filings. The respondents, Deputy Gavin Ror, Deputy Travis Nolan, Sergeant Marlon Keats, Captain Reed Hollister, each represented by the police union's legal counsel, a single attorney overworked, managing four simultaneous defenses. Belle Odum was not a respondent.
She had been referred separately to the courthouse administrative office for review. A process that would take another four months and result eventually in a written reprimand and mandatory bias training, no suspension, no termination, a letter in a file. The hearing lasted 2 days. The evidence presented included FBI covert camera footage from the service corridor, 23 minutes of continuous recording showing the full encounter, the handcuffing, the search, Ror's questioning, Nolan's body cam deactivation, and Keats's text message being typed on a personal phone. Timestamp authenticated by FBI digital evidence laboratory.
Certificate of authenticity signed by technical analyst Raymond Voss, dated 6 weeks prior. Body cam footage from Ror's unit. 47 minutes of recording. Key discrepancy. The footage showed the plaza encounter and the walk to the corridor, but the audio became corrupted for an 8-minute segment beginning at 1423.
The department's IT specialist testified that the corruption was consistent with a hardware malfunction, though he acknowledged under cross-examination that he could not rule out manual interference. Body cam footage from Nolan's unit, the 12-minute gap. The device log recovered by the FBI confirmed manual deactivation at 142107. Nolan's attorney argued the deactivation was inadvertent, the result of my client adjusting his vest during a physically dynamic situation. The panel noted that the deactivation occurred while all parties were standing still.
The intercepted text message from Keat's personal phone. Timestamp 1429. Recipient RH. Content: We have a problem at the courthouse. Two subjects collecting badge numbers and shift data, bringing them in.
Handle the paperwork before they get processed. Cell Tower Records confirm the transmission. Keat's attorney argued the message was a routine administrative notification and that handle the paperwork referred to standard intake procedures. The panel asked why a standard intake notification would be sent from a personal phone rather than the department radio system. Keat's attorney declined to answer.
The incident report authored by Ror, reviewed by Keats, countersigned by Hollister. Compared line by line with the FBI covert footage, the body cam footage, and the encrypted audio from Malcolm's phone. The report described the subjects as verbally combative. The audio showed four calm sentences from Malcolm and six from Darius. The report described resisted verbal commands.
The footage showed both men standing when told, placing hands behind their backs when told, and walking when directed. The report omitted the service corridor entirely. The FBI footage showed 14 minutes of interaction in that space. The notation in Darius's notebook, destroy after review, KM, submitted as exhibit 22. Handwriting analysis conducted by the FBI laboratory division matched Sergeant Keats's known exemplars with a probability assessment of highly probable.
Judge Sloan's written statement submitted as exhibit 3 read into the record by the panel chair. The panel deliberated for 4 days. The findings released in a 17-page document titled Preliminary Findings, Internal Affairs Case Number 2024-I0347, stated the following. Deputy Gavin Ror, sustained on three counts, unlawful detention, unlawful search, and filing a materially false incident report. Recommended disposition suspension without pay pending completion of federal investigation.