A recently hired Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office employee was arrested by St. Johns County deputies on charges including traveling to meet a minor for sex, lewd and lascivious battery and human trafficking, the Sheriff’s Office reported Oct. 6.
Terrance Owens, 32, was charged Sept. 18 and was fired from JSO “immediately” after his bosses learned of the arrest, an agency spokesperson announced by email.
Owens was hired June 30 as a civilian employee in JSO’s communications center. He was still considered a probationary employee with no civil service protection when he was arrested less than three months after he was hired.
Receiving Officer Kiwana Fields listens to an emergency 911 call in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office communications center in this 2007 photo. JSO said Oct. 6 that a former communications employee, Terrance Owens, was arrested on human trafficking charges and fired.
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“We hold our police, corrections and civilian employees to the highest standards and will not tolerate any criminal activity,” spokesperson Reagan Fink said. “We commend our partners at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office for their work to protect our children.”
Owens was one of 17 men whose arrests announced Oct. 6 as part of an investigation called Operation Safe Passage that St. Johns authorities said targeted “subjects who use the internet to prey on children.”
Details about Owens’ actions leading to his arrest weren’t immediately available and his case didn’t appear to be listed in St. Johns County court records.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: JSO employee among 17 arrested in St. Johns child sex investigation