Orlando City Hall stands at the corner of South Orange Avenue and South Street. On Saturday, Oct. 17, Orlando police arrested a police officer from another city on DUI and reckless-driving charges near that corner. He was off duty. He was also, his department confirmed, in one of its patrol vehicles.
The officer, Joseph Everett, 29, worked for the Haines City Police Department, about 30 miles southwest in Polk County. A city public safety spokesperson told Tampa station WTSP that Everett “was off duty in his assigned Haines City marked patrol vehicle at the time of the arrest.”
Haines City hired him in July. By Sunday he was gone; the spokesperson said he was terminated “as a result of this incident.”
What the records say
Orange County Corrections records, as cited by several local outlets, show Everett was arrested by the Orlando Police Department and booked into the county jail on a DUI charge and a reckless-driving charge. Both are misdemeanors. He no longer appears in the county’s current inmate database, which lists only people still in custody.
The Orlando police citation, as described by WKMG and WOFL, says officers noted the odor of alcohol on Everett’s breath, bloodshot eyes and heavy eyelids, and describes him as cooperative. He provided two breath samples. WKMG reported one result as 0.265; WFLA reported 0.266. Florida’s legal limit is 0.08. He was also cited for an open container, according to the same records.
Accounts of the time of the stop differ. WOFL, in a story posted Saturday evening, described it as an afternoon arrest; WFLA reported it happened just after midnight on Oct. 18. Jail records, as reported, list the arrest on Oct. 17.
The Haines City Police Department has not said why Everett had the car in Orlando or whether its take-home vehicle rules allowed the trip. Police Chief Isaac Jackson, in a statement provided to WOFL, said “the reported conduct constitutes a serious violation of the Haines City Police Department’s General Orders.”
The second opportunity
Jackson’s statement also explained why. He said he was “deeply concerned and disappointed,” in particular because Haines City had “provided him with a second opportunity to serve in law enforcement following his prior separation from another agency.”
That other agency was the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. On June 22, 2024, the sheriff’s office arrested Everett, then a deputy with about two years on the job, on a DUI charge after a supervisor smelled alcohol on his breath as he reported for duty, according to the arrest affidavit as reported at the time. The affidavit says he told investigators he had “consumed about three coffee mugs of whiskey” the night before. He resigned when he was arrested.
That case went nowhere. The State Attorney’s Office dropped it in May 2025, and Everett was not convicted. Fourteen months later, Haines City hired him.
It has not been a quiet year for the department. In June, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested Haines City officer Jeffrey Ziegler, accusing him of running up $10,362.02 on a dead man’s credit cards in 2024, while he was a Hillsborough County detention deputy; he resigned from Haines City upon his arrest. In August, Haines City officer Christopher Goodson was arrested, accused in an arrest affidavit of using Flock license-plate cameras to track his estranged wife. Both are allegations; neither officer had been convicted when the arrests were announced.
Where it stands
Everett is charged, not convicted, and the misdemeanor DUI and reckless-driving cases will be handled in Orange County court. The Auto Wire could not find a public statement from Everett or an attorney representing him.
After the 2024 arrest, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd offered a one-line hiring standard: “If you lack the proper judgment when it comes to drinking and driving, you have no business working in law enforcement.” That case was later dropped without a conviction, and Haines City gave Everett what its chief called a second opportunity. It lasted about three months. It ended in Orange County, in a marked Haines City patrol vehicle, near the corner where a different city keeps its City Hall.