A current Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police officer was arrested by the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday night, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters announced Thursday.
Waters said Brian Housend was arrested on the following charges:
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Waters said Housend has been suspended and placed on leave and that JSO will move to terminate his employment. The sheriff called the charges against Housend “serious and deplorable.”
Housend was first hired by JSO on Oct. 31, 2005, left the agency to work elsewhere and was re-hired on two separate occasions, Waters said.
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JSO was notified of the investigation on Wednesday and assisted NCSO.
Since NCSO is both the arresting and investigating agency, Waters said he could not share details of the case.
Action News Jax has obtained redacted copies of Housend’s arrest report and warrant.
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On Tuesday, a Nassau deputy responded to the victim’s home after “she observed what she believed was a green laser shining into the window of her home,” the warrant said. The victim said she “believed it was the type of laser that could be attached to a firearm,” the warrant said.
She told the deputy that she believed it could be Housend shining the laser into her home “based on an ongoing pattern of threats she had been receiving from” Housend. The warrant said she also told deputies that Housend “has a large collection of firearms that he owns” for personal and professional use.
According to the warrant, “several times between 5-10-2024 and 8-13-2024 suspect makes statements to (victim) threatening bodily harm if she refuses to allow him back into her life.” The victim showed the messages to investigators, which are included in the warrant. The messages sent by Housend to the victim are redacted.
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While reviewing the messages, investigators noticed one of them referenced “that night in February when you hurt me.” The victim told the deputy that Housend “had physically abused her when trying to pry her cellphone from her hands. … Following the struggle, Suspect grabbed a Colt rifle out of the gun safe without any provocation or explanation,” the warrant said.
She said when she went to the doctor in February, “she told the treating physicians that the injuries were the result of falling down, but stated that she lied about that out of fear for the way Suspect would respond if she were to have told the truth.” She showed the deputy photos of her injuries “which included swelling and bruising around her right eye, as well as swelling and redness to her upper lip.”
One of the messages, sent on July 11 from the victim to the suspect, said that Housend threatened to kill the victim unless she gave him another chance. “You are terrorizing me and held me hostage in the house today,” the message said.
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The warrant said the victim gave the deputy more details about that incident, that the “Suspect came uninvited into her house in his marked JSO patrol car, in his JSO uniform, wearing his JSO service weapon.”
Housend banged on the home’s back door and the victim “reluctantly” let him into the house, the warrant said. They had a civil conversation that “eventually shifted to a threatening conversation” and Housend said if the victim “would not get back with him he would kill her then and there.”
Housend tried to get the victim to go outside “so he could ‘take care of it’” but the victim refused and sat in a computer chair with her back toward him. The victim “believed that Suspect would be less likely to kill her if he had to shoot her in the back,” the warrant said.
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The victim told the deputy that Housend “was snapping and unsnapping the holster carrying his service pistol in an overtly threatening manner,” the warrant said.
She told the deputy that during this, the warrant said, “she was in fear for her life” and “did not feel she was free to leave and that she was confined in her home.”
According to the NCSO online inmate inquiry, Housend is being held on a total bond of $1.25 million.
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