Florida deputy fired after off-duty fight at Jacksonville hotel

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Brevard County Sheriff's Office deputy was fired after being involved in an altercation while off duty in February at a Jacksonville hotel.

According to an internal affairs report from the Sheriff's Office that was obtained by News4Jax on Tuesday, then-Deputy Jason Allen Roberts and his fiancée were staying at the Lexington Hotel on Jacksonville's Southbank. The report said they met an unnamed man who was also staying there and all three drank into the night before returning to their rooms about 4:30 a.m. March 17. The report said Roberts got mad when his fiancée went into the other man's bathroom and he started banging and kicking the door, breaking it. The other man tried to defuse the situation, according to the report, but Roberts punched him in the face, knocking out a tooth. The fiancée came out of the bathroom, Roberts pinned her to the floor, the other man again tried to intervene and Roberts knocked him down to the floor and pinned him, the report said. That’s when the other man pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Roberts, according to the report. The Sheriff's Office said he was injured in the shooting.

The state attorney’s office called it self-defense. The state attorney's office considered charging Roberts with battery, but did not. He was fired.

The man who shot him was questioned and released. He was not charged. 

According to the Sheriff's Office, Roberts had been disciplined a number of times, dating back to 2011, including for an unsafe pursuit, failing to respond to a text alert about a shooting, being intoxicated and unprofessional toward first responders while off duty, missing a deposition in a case that led to charges being dropped and not filing a response-to-resistance report after he injured a woman while making a prostitution arrest.