A Suwanee police officer’s alleged sexual encounter while on duty has cost him his job.
Michael Chavez was fired last month after admitting he received oral sex from a woman he escorted home from a bar, police say.
“We have a standard here,” Suwanee Police Chief Mike Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.” All officers know that if they indulge in such behavior, they will be dismissed.”
Chavez was one of three area law enforcement officers to be disciplined in December for having sex while on the job.
On Dec. 27, Forsyth County Sheriff’s deputy Lt. Todd Maloney was suspended three weeks for allegedly having sex with a woman while he was on duty.
Earlier in the month, DeKalb County police fired Sgt. D.A. Thomas for, among other things, having sex with a subordinate and taking "inappropriate" pictures with a county-issued cell phone.
In the Suwanee case, Jones said Chavez's dismissal resulted from “poor decision-making.”
On Dec. 3, Chavez saw a woman walking home from a bar inside the city limits and offered to escort her home to her apartment.
“He did everything properly” initially, Jones said, noting that Chavez called in what he was doing to police dispatch and helped the woman, who had been drinking and was too intoxicated to drive, Jones said.
According to the internal affairs report, however, Chavez failed to check the woman for weapons before allowing her inside his patrol car, and he let her sit in the front seat – both policy violations.
When they arrived at the woman’s apartment, Jones said Chavez asked to use the woman’s bathroom.
From there the story deviates, with Chavez and the woman describing different scenarios for internal affairs investigators who interviewed them both, Jones said.
The internal investigation was spurred by a complaint the woman filed several days after Chavez gave her the ride home.
She said he emerged from the bathroom that night and tried to kiss her three times, eventually pushing her onto her bed, Jones said.
“She said she told him to stop each time, then he stopped and left,” Jones said, recounting the woman’s accusations of Chavez. “My concern was that there was force there.”
But Chavez told interviewers the woman gave him oral sex, police said.
“The officer’s testimony was very detailed,” Jones said.
Chavez was fired Dec. 21, after two years with the department.
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