Florida sheriff’s deputy Sheila Langlais lost her cool and pulled a gun on an unassuming couple in a car with a 2-year-old in the back seat.
Now the Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy is out of a job and will spend nearly a year in jail in addition to paying a $500 fine.
The embattled deputy has resigned from three law enforcement agencies since 2001.
It all went down on February 7 when Brett Dowd and his fiancee, Brittany Byrne, were driving in the parking lot of Twin Lakes apartment complex to visit friends for a cookout.
As Byrne was driving, she pulled into a parking spot as you normally would.
But the off-duty deputy was also pulling into the spot, which is when all hell broke loose, according to the [__Tampa Bay Times.__](http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/former-pinellas-deputy-found-guilty-of-exhibiting-gun-sentenced-to-jail/2297114)
Langlais began shouting profanities to Byrne and Dowd, who shouted profanities back.
That was when Langais pulled out her pistol, pointing it at the couple, all while their 2-year-old child was in the backseat.
After apparently gaining some sort of satisfaction from pointing her gun at innocent people, Langlais then drove off.
The couple called police and gave a description of the gun-touting suspect and the vehicle. Police located Langlais’s vehicle within minutes in the complex parking lot.
Subsequently, Langlais was located in a nearby apartment.
As police investigated, Langlais denied carrying a gun. But investigators found Langlais’s gun inside the apartment of a fellow deputy named Sarah Swanner, whom Langlais was visiting that day.
In a last ditch effort to avoid being fired, Langlais resigned the next day.
Even Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri weighed in on the situation:
“She made a very, very bad decision. I wouldn’t even call it a mistake. It’s a lie. It’s not a mistake.”
The trial concluded on Friday, resulting in Langlais being sentenced to eleven months in county jail.
She was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault, but a jury found her guilty of two misdemeanor counts of improper exhibition of a firearm. Pinellas Circuit Judge William Burgess III dismissed one count citing double jeopardy.
Langlais began her career with the Tarpon Springs Police Department in 2000, but resigned a year later after it was discovered that she was having a romantic relationship with a sergeant in her department.
She also got the Tarpon Springs Police Department sued after Langlais wrongfully arrested a man and had him sitting in jail for 39 days. The department eventually settled that lawsuit for $7,000.
In 2001 Langlais joined the Pinellas Park Police Department, but resigned in 2005 after she refused to end a high speed pursuit the way her supervisor instructed her to.
