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Escambia Deputy Charged With Capital Sexual Battery On Child
July 27, 2019
An Escambia County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been charged with a capital child sexual offense.
According to jail records, 33-year old Jerome Zaid was booked into the Escambia County Jail at 5:42 p.m. Friday on a capital felony charge of sexual battery on a victim under 12-years old, and a third degree felony charge of battery of a child under 18.
“We were made aware of allegations and turned it over to FDLE who did the investigation and arrest,” Maj. Andrew Hobbs of the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said. “We are in the process of terminating his employment.”
Zaid is being held without bond. His mugshot is exempt from release under Florida law because he is a law enforcement officer.
If convicted of capital sexual battery, Zaid would face a mandatory life sentence.
Further details have not yet been released.
Comments
34 Responses to “Escambia Deputy Charged With Capital Sexual Battery On Child”
Steve sounds like a real “HERO” here, what with rationalizing domestic violence (a violent crime) and patronizing truck drivers by saying their jobs aren’t stressful when, ironically, truck drivers face the same greatest threat to their safety EVERY DAY that LEOs do: spending a majority of their time in traffic. Steve sounds like Your all-too-typical police worker, LITERALLY rationalizing CRIMES committed by police while trying to jump up on the martyr mantle and get sympathy for the reasons he gives for committing domestic violence. This guy is exactly what is wrong with police work: bad people in the occupation.
@ Me.Obvious……I was not saying to prosecute if found guilty, I was inferring that if he was actually guilty of that, he needed to be prosecuted … sorry, some folks just don’t get what I’m thinking thru my typing…
Why is Mr Zaid being fired before a trial? He is innocent until found guilty.
@JustMe, *god* doesn’t solve these kinds of problems. good parents, schools, guardians and role models do. a country that puts people over parties, does. a country that puts people over religion does. a country that puts the world before themselves does.
I don’t support the media posting his picture at all, there’s a reason the mugshot law exists, but it’s not like we the public weren’t going to immediately go Google or FB search his name to see if we know him.
@Steve
You just gave the most ridiculous reasoning for domestic violence and child abuse I’ve ever heard. I’m a child of a 30 year LEO, he saw stuff Hollywood could never imagine, and never once did he lay a hand on us when he got home due to “work related stress”. Men, and women, who choose to abuse their families would do it whether they were law enforcement or truck drivers, regardless of the work load.
@alabamanon
DV in law enforcement doesn’t have a solid statistic because victims aren’t honest just like the rest of normal citizens. We will never truly know how many women and children are beaten, or abused, daily in any community which is the disgusting fact we should be focusing on instead of 20 year old statistics.
If this former deputy is truly guilty of this crime, I pray he never sees the light of day again. He doesn’t deserve freedom or free will as he’s proven too evil for both.
I pray his victim/s are able to heal and find peace within the chaos that is sexual abuse.
Omg
@Steve
I’m a strong supporter of the police and my husband is a leo. Where to even begin with your comment. There is never an acceptable reason for DV, no matter what you do for a living. What a sickening thing to say. You type those words almost like it’s an excuse to beat on someone. As a wife to a Leo I truly understand the job today as opposed to years ago but it isn’t about the stress it’s about how one deals with the stress. In my 50 years I have buried 3 children, both my parents and a husband. I had the choice after each death to crumple and let life eat me up or put my big girl panties on and move forward. Beating on a loved one was never an option.
I’m also a paramedic and endure a lot of stress in my job. Peoples lives depend on my actions. Doing the wrong thing kills people. Arriving on scene at an unresponsive child to find an emaciated baby,sitting in a swing, that has been dead for hours and the mother has no clue. Having run on the same family 6 months earlier and tried to get DHR involved in because the drunken mother was nursing her child who had a bloody and raw bottom from sitting in its own feces. A 10lb -one year old baby. Arrive on scene at a cardiac arrest and the wife is hysterical because her husband died in front of her and having to try to give illusion that her husband has a fighting chance after working him for 25 mins, only to have to tell the wife he has died. Even after those days I go home and hold my children and my 8 rescue pups a little tighter and hope for a better shift next day. I don’t beat on them because my day sucked. Again it goes back to how one deals with stress. Also all leo’s have dept shrinks they can talk to but most choose not to use them because they are dept services. Then get a shrink outside work. I dated a man before I met my husband who was adamant he wasn’t talking to a dept shrink. He’d seen some horrible stuff,including his partners brains all over the door and windshield of a car and suffers from PTSD(still works as a Leo) and talked often about his death. When he retires he wants to go on a raid, be the first in the door and get shot dead. So yeah I know the stressors of the job but if you can’t find ways to deal with the stress other than beating on your loved one it is time to move on and find a better job, get a divorce or get help. If you believe it is ever acceptable to beat on an innocent person because you’ve had a bad day then you are part of the problem.
It isn’t about whose job is more stressful than others. Cops are more stressed than truck drivers? Tell that to the truck driver that just blew his brains out at a truck stop not to long ago..
@ekg,
Apparently basic legal proceedings isn’t your forté, so I’ll keep it super simple for you. A person is NOT found guilty and THEN prosecuted. A person is prosecuted (put on trial) to determine if they’re guilty. So, one more time…..an accused person goes to trial, THEN a jury of their peers decides whether the person is innocent or guilt and gives a verdict.
The comments below blaming cops for what ever,,,
This demon here is just that and has been taken down by the very group he was with. There is no cover up and nothing like that police dont put up with members tarnishing the image of being honorable.
To those blaming cops for being in a higher percentage group of DV calls, we all bring home our work. To what degree depends on the person.
A person that drives a truck dont carry the stress load say a Doctor.
And when people carry work stress home things can happen, police in general are VERY stressed these days. Not only with the work load but the CONSTANT complaining from the public. Some complaints are justified but 99% are not. Take that stress combined with shift work and people in general will be at each other.
I see alot of people on here bring straight up keyboard warriors with alot to say. Full of condemnation and judgment. Unless you know for sure this officer is guilty and you saw this incident go down maybe you should hold back on the vitriol and your hopes and dreams of life imprisonment for this guy. Plenty of people have been accused and gone to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. Plenty of African American male are sitting in prison because someone pointed their finger with ulterior motives. That’s why most sane people remember innocent until proven guilty. Don’t give into the mob mentality, you’d want a chance if this was you.
Sick
@Alabamanon and Eyeeye
40% came from a 1994 study based out of England and is not correct. Eyeeye, seems like Don’t Judge a Book baffled you with facts. The actual number for LEO’s is roughly 14%. The national average is 1 out of 4 or 25%. Our fine officers have to deal with enough without you slamming them with made up facts because you saw a meme on Facebook and took it as truth.
It’s horrible what happened and any officer I know is disgusted at this deputies actions! Double so because it reflects on them.
If he is guilty, he should be prosecuted…..but sometimes our sheriffs are accused of things that they have not committed…so I hope it is handled well.
My buddy had a charge put on him just like this by his exwife during divorce / it ruined him financially but she recanted before trial. With that said I don’t know the circumstances of this but i hope it all comes to light soon. With that said I refuse to judge, but Anyone to harm a child should be locked up for their natural life!
As far as the photo /. Public records are exempt, ie booking photo but any others are not
Do articles involving police officers whose mugshots are exempt usually include a photo of him/her pulled from another source? It’s fine either way; it just struck me as odd seeing this since I remember wishing other articles could include their face even though I understood about the mugshot law.
People accused of crimes according to the law are innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers. I have been a victim of a crime and suffered more than the people who committed the crime. Some were sent to prison 3 meals and bed others did not. Victim’s have very little rights. If it were not for people who loved me, I would have starved and the victim compensation fund only gave a little money a year later. So cry me a river for the criminals rights, the victim(s) are the ones who suffer the most.
@Don’t judge a book….
The response from ‘Facts’ was supporting the previous post regarding 40% statistic. It wasn’t about the opinion of how you felt the study was done or timeframe or whatever else you’re blabbering about. It was resourcing the facts shared that were argued to be made up or false by previous post.
MMRO6497 – I think you were replying to my post. Not Cunningham. I was just saying that you can put a picture on here of him in uniform, but they can’t put his booking photo on the arrest logs page. Most people don’t go to the inmates record search. If he is guilty, they need to put him in prison for life. If he is put in general population, that is another story. Things may take care of themselves.
“Zaid is being held without bond. His mugshot is exempt from release under Florida law because he is a law enforcement officer.”
See the laws are against everyone else, but they get special treatment. Why not treat him the same way as others? Why special treatment?
The study done by the National Center for Women & Policing says:
There were 70 OIDV [officer-involved domestic violence] cases during 2005, 116 cases in 2006, and 138 cases in 2007. The percentage of total police crimes that were OIDV cases remained relatively stable from 2005 (17.2%) to 2007 (16%),” the study says.
There’s not a lot of studies done and the info is about a decade old. The 40% number comes from a study conducted in the early 90s. Now, like with the general public, I’m sure not every incident is reported. It still not nearly as high as the general public for DV incidents. Statistically, it may be higher because you have about 1.2 million officers in the USA and a general population of about 300 million. So, yes, statically it would be higher but that’s a manipulation of numbers.
http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp#notes.
For those of you attacking the other post regarding statistics shared do some research on your own before bashing. But, since you did, there’s the link. That’s just one of them. You’re welcome.
It’s 100% true. I’ve been told myself the same thing from a domestic violence advocate as well as an attorney after my former spouse, a local LEO, abused me for years. You have no clue what goes on behind closed doors. They are pros at putting on a mask and playing the part to others.
This doesn’t surprise me at all if he is found guilty. If the county new what goes on in our law enforcement, they’d be shocked. Disgusting individuals.
Bonnie Cunningham – this looks like a photo from a previous news article, or from a sheriffs dept function, this isn’t a mugshot.
Please Lord let him be convicted of this crime and sentenced appropriately. I believe in my heart this is a disease they can’t overcome and they should be locked away for life or sentenced to die. The victim will take years to recover if the person recovers at all. I don’t understand how a person can do this
I know he has to be found guilty first BUT…he lost his law enforcement credentials when he committed the crime….just saying.
@ Alabamanon
I do not believe those statistics about leo compared to no leo. The best majority of officers are well fit for their positions.
@ alabamanon. before you hang him be sure he is found guilty. i’m not sure where you got your numbers from. I do know a lot of officers and none have done any thing like this. Officers face stress most days on the job and it is Impossible to forget what they have faced when they get home. The job is hard on their family. Try cutting them a little slack in your comments.
@ alabamanon…..You are welcome to your “opinion.” Not sure you are welcome to comment on the “truth” if you can not supply some facts. Give us more!
alabamanon… and where did you get those facts???
Just because you say it doesn’t make it so…
Should be mandatory death sentence. What does castration do, nothing in my opinion .
What is going on in this world , please everyone we need to put God back in all of our life’s , this is scary we are suppose to be able to trust law enforcement, if he did this please give him the max sentence! That’s all we need in Escambia is another sex abuse case with the sheriff’s office!
Extremely disturbing news. You just have to shake your head at someone willing to trade a career for the title of “felon” and willing to take the risks to spend the rest of their life in state prison.
Every sexual crime against a child should carry a life sentence along with punishment of castration! Why is this a capital charge, and not every other daily” sex crime against a child?!?
At least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population. How disgusting is it that those put in place to ‘help’ us are so unfit for their positions.
Uhmmmmm…..there’s his picture. Does that mean you can post it here but they don’t post the mugshot on the arrest reports page?