KEY WEST, Fla. — The Key West Police Department says it did not create a police report after journalist Zack Ford filed one Sept. 10 about Police Chief Sean Brandenburg and the department in direct contravention to Florida statutes, despite the fact though Ford’s statement was entered into the department’s computer-aided dispatch system.
What remains unclear is whether Ford’s allegations were formally opened as a personnel complaint, referred to Internal Affairs or Professional Standards, or otherwise investigated through the separate complaint process Florida law requires law enforcement agencies to maintain.
The disclosure came Thursday during an email exchange between Ford and KWPD Public Affairs Liaison Shannon Perzel after Ford requested a copy and report number for the complaint he said he filed at police headquarters a week earlier.
Perzel initially sent Ford police report No. 26-1423 along with a computer-aided dispatch record, commonly called a CAD.
Unfortunately, that was the wrong one despite the journalist giving the specifics in his request for public records.
BACKGROUND
BREAKING: Journalist Zack Ford Calls for Key West Police Chief’s Resignation
KEY WEST, Fla. — Key West journalist Zack Ford is calling for Key West Police Department Chief Sean Brandenburg to resign and State Attorney Dennis Ward to investigate the KWPD, alleging the chief and his officers failed to protect residents from abuses by federal immigration agents including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and…
The records recieved were actually a separate complaint filed by Ford against Customs & Border Patrol agent Bruno Cabral who has been accused of using excessive force when attempting to apprehend immigrants. Cabral has been the subject of other complaints and a petition started by Ford on Change.org that garnered widespread support, earning more than 4,000 verified signatures.
Ford responded that the report provided was associated with an earlier report he filed on March 23.
Ford’s Sept. 10 complaint accused Brandenburg and KWPD of failing to protect Key West residents during federal immigration enforcement activity and called for Brandenburg’s resignation and an investigation by Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward.
He again asked specifically for documentation from Sept. 10, when he said he filed individual complaints against Brandenburg and KWPD.
Perzel emailed him back several minutes later:
“Here is the call record (called a CAD) of your statement submitted on 9/10/26,” Perzel wrote. “There is no police report.”
Ford then copied Mayor Sam Kaufman and the entire City Commission on his response and asked whether KWPD had failed to create the report he believed he had filed.
“I specifically told the KWPD I was filing a report against Chief Sean Brandenburg, and the KWPD itself, and they did not file it?” Ford asked in an email.
The email chain provided to Above the Fold does not include a department response to that question.
The draws Above the Fold’s Sept. 10 reporting, which said Ford went to KWPD headquarters at approximately 4:30 p.m. to file a complaint against Brandenburg and the department, into sharper focus.
Official public records now establish that Ford made a complaint, KWPD documented his statement in a CAD entry and no conventional police report was created. Officers Michal Brablc and Fred Sims took the report, then failed to follow KWPD and State regulations.
Under Section 112.533 of the Florida Statutes, law enforcement agencies are not required to create an ordinary incident report for every complaint against an officer. They are, however, required to maintain a system for the “receipt, investigation, and determination” of such complaints.
KWPD’s published procedures say complaints against police personnel may be made in person, by telephone, letter or email. If a complainant proceeds after speaking with a supervisor, the department says the matter is recorded on a Personnel Complaint Form.
The records obtained and reviewed by Above the Fold do not show whether such a form was completed for Ford, whether his allegations were sent to Internal Affairs or Professional Standards, or whether an administrative investigation was opened — although Ford’s interaction with KWPD was recorded and distributed by this publication and other media outlets.
Above the Fold previously filed a public records request seeking records connected to the matter, but the request was “lost” because of a technical glitch. The request was resubmitted to the Key West Police Department on Thursday — and an updated request for the state-required documentation was added.
No response had been received from KWPD by press time.
Requests for comment from Brandenburg — who is vacationing in Hawaii — went unanswered before publication and Key West Mayor Sam Kaufman declined to comment on Friday when asked.
“I have personally reported several first-hand accounts of Key Westers being assaulted, battered and threatened by ICE (CBP) while KWPD officers looked on,” Ford told Above the Fold on Friday. “Many more of the interviews that I’ve conducted with Key Westers who have suffered at the hands of ICE will be will be published in the Vanderbilt University Press book, “PARANOID ISLAND.”
The book is based on his ground-breaking coverage of the immigration crisis that is now threatening the tourism industry in Key West.
The unresolved issue is whether Ford’s Sept. 10 complaint was formally processed through KWPD’s personnel-complaint system after it was documented in CAD.
Thank you for reporting this. I think that the police have been complicit and they should answer to our community.