After a two-day hearing, a former City of Tampa employee learned that she won\u2019t be reinstated. She was fired last year after being accused of not coming forward with information during a police investigation involving her nephew.<\/p>\n
Last year, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor suspended Mrs. Carolyn Riggins<\/strong>, a 10-year employee with the Tampa Police Department during an Internal Affairs investigation.\u00a0 Based on the results of that investigaiton, Chief Castor<\/strong> terminated her.<\/p>\n According to City records, Mrs. Riggins<\/strong> was employed in February 2000. She has worked in several areas within the department with her most recent assignment being the Extra Duty Office. Mrs. Riggins<\/strong> is the aunt of murder suspect, Dontae Morris<\/strong>, who surrendered July 2, 2010, after a massive nationwide manhunt. Morris was charged with killing Tampa Police Officers Jeff<\/strong> Kocab<\/strong> and Davis Curtis<\/strong>, on June 29, 2010. He has also been charged with the murders of\u00a0 Derek Anderson<\/strong>, 21, on May 18th; Rodney Jones<\/strong>, 41, on May 31st; and Harold Wright<\/strong>, 25, on June 8th.<\/p>\n After two days of testimony, the Civil Service Board for the City of Tampa decided in favor of upholding the termination. The board decided that Mrs. Riggins<\/strong> should have told her superiors that her daughter, Alaina Riggins<\/strong>, had a close relationship with Morris<\/strong> and his brother, Dwayne Calloway<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Last year after the termination, Chief Castor<\/strong> said in a news release, \u201cAs our department was reeling from the loss of two fine officers, it was another devastating blow to discover a valued Tampa Police Department employee worked against our efforts to catch the hardened criminal.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 Our investigation has revealed that Carolyn Riggins<\/strong> both withheld pertinent information that could have aided in the suspect\u2019s apprehension and provided information to his associates that interfered with the department\u2019s ability to track down the suspect.\u201d<\/p>\n When contacted by the Sentinel<\/em><\/strong>, Mrs. Riggins<\/strong> said she did not want to comment.<\/p>\n Of the Civil Service ruling, Chief Castor<\/strong> said, \u201cThere is not joy in this verdict. Carolyn Riggins<\/strong> was a trusted member of our TPD family and she betrayed us in our darkest hour. We can all breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that this chapter is closed and we can now move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n City Editor Iris B. Holton can be contacted at (813) 248-1921; or emailed at iholton@flsentinel.com.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a two-day hearing, a former City of Tampa employee learned that she won\u2019t be reinstated. She was fired last year after being accused of not coming forward with information during a police investigation involving her nephew. Last year, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor suspended Mrs. Carolyn Riggins, a 10-year employee with the Tampa Police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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