VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — A former Volusia County Deputy who was fired after being caught on video using a chokehold will be paid $100,000 and have his name cleared, after he fought back against the Sheriff’s Office.
Jacob Kraker was off duty when he was accused of using that form of deadly force. It happened in the summer of 2020, during the height of police tensions following the murder of George Floyd.
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Investigative Reporter Karla Ray got ahold of the settlement agreement which lays out the details of the payout and how Kraker’s name was cleared. The accusations against Kraker will become ‘unfounded’ in his employment records, and his certification will be intact.
“He headbutted me, so I tackled him,” Kraker told Port Orange Police in the summer of 2020, after an incident that cot him his career with VCSO.
While off duty and working in the capacity of a ‘courtesy’ officer at an apartment complex pool, Kraker tried to break up a 21st birthday party. Investigators determined that surveillance video showed him tackling the guest of honor and putting the 21-year-old in a chokehold; considered a dangerous form of deadly force.
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“I got in there, and said, hey guys, it’s time to shut it down, let’s go,” Kraker described to Port Orange Police. “I showed him my badge, and he snatched it out of my hand and threw it.”
But after being fired and facing a case of perjury related to the incident, Kraker’s charges were dropped and he just had his name cleared with his former agency. A settlement agreement not only allows him to retroactively resign from his position, but the results of the internal affairs investigation were changed to unfounded, and his standing with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission will be amended to show he voluntarily separated from the agency, unrelated to misconduct. He will also get a payout totaling $100,000 from the County and Sheriff’s Office.
Volusia County Deputies are not to use chokeholds, and following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Florida Police Chief’s Association recommended banning chokeholds outright within all Florida law enforcement agencies. That’s an incident Kraker seemed to reference during that tension-filled summer.
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“He screamed, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ played that whole game,” Kraker said on body camera video.
As part of the settlement agreement, Kraker can never work in any capacity with Volusia County Sheriff’s Office as long as Mike Chitwood is Sheriff. If another Sheriff is in charge, the agency does not have to consider Kraker as a candidate for employment.
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