A lately fired Kissimmee deputy police chief didn’t carry out his duties and take correct motion within the investigation of an officer who brutally beat a person and mired the company in scandal, an inner affairs report reveals.
Wilson Muñoz, who had been with the Kissimmee Police Division since 1999 and served as deputy chief since 2023, was fired final month following an inner investigation into his function in what a grand jury known as a cover-up of former officer Andrew Baseggio’s beating of a person inside his own residence, division officers confirmed final week.
A newly launched inner affairs report obtained by the Orlando Sentinel mentioned Muñoz violated the division’s requirements {of professional} conduct by accepting Baseggio’s inner cost as a mere “coverage violation” when there was a transparent “extreme pressure” problem. He additionally accredited a “clearly inadequate” self-discipline for Baseggio, the report says.
The case started in April 2023, when Baseggio responded to a disturbance at a home on Brack Avenue. Physique-worn digital camera video confirmed him coming into with out a warrant and attacking Sean Kastner by kneeing him within the face and beautiful him a number of instances with a Taser. Kastner was not resisting arrest, authorities mentioned.
Muñoz, who mentioned he had been lately promoted to deputy chief on the time, met with then-Chief Betty Holland and then-Deputy Chief Camille Alicea to debate if Baseggio’s use of pressure was felony. The three unanimously agreed that the case was not felony and lacked intent, the report mentioned.
The division’s inner investigation into Baseggio discovered that the violation he dedicated was a violation of guidelines and never the particular extreme pressure violation that existed within the company’s requirements of conduct. Muñoz’s subordinates subsequently really useful Baseggio obtain an 8-hour suspension as self-discipline, in keeping with the report.
Muñoz accepted the investigation’s findings that Baseggio hadn’t dedicated an extreme pressure violation and accredited the 8-hour suspension. Nevertheless, when inner investigators spoke to Muñoz in July as a part of his personal inner investigation, he testified he believed Baseggio’s actions had been extreme pressure.
When inner investigators requested how he thought the 8-hour suspension was acceptable given the circumstances of the case, he mentioned, “In my thoughts it made sense.”
Nevertheless, Muñoz acknowledged to inner investigators that along with his extra time and expertise now as a deputy chief, he wouldn’t have made the identical resolution. He agreed that primarily based on the totality of the occasions throughout Baseggio’s beating of Kastner, the choice to provide an eight-hour suspension was inappropriate.
The report notes when he was beforehand requested by the Orange-Osceola State Legal professional’s Workplace why he accepted the findings of Baseggio’s inner investigation, he mentioned “That’s simply the way in which issues had been performed.”
He additionally advised the State Legal professional’s Workplace that he was not conscious on the time that company coverage allowed him to amend the cost on an inner affairs case and believed solely Holland, as chief, might achieve this. Nevertheless, he mentioned he didn’t inform Holland of any issues with the interior investigation’s findings.
Baseggio was finally sentenced to 9 months in jail after pleading responsible to felony battery, witness tampering and official misconduct. The “tradition of cover-up” described by a grand jury finally resulted in a number of officers being fired or pressured to resign, together with Holland.
