BATON ROUGE — Baton Rouge Police Officer Jason Dennis has resigned from BRPD as of Thursday, Oct. 19, according to a Baton Rouge Union lawyer, Tommy Dewey. His resignation comes ahead of his pre-disciplinary hearing and two days after Unfiltered with Kiran‘s investigation where Dennis is accused of raping a woman after responding to a domestic violence call & then lying about it in his report. Since the alleged incident, the officer was put back on full duty and did not face any criminal charges.
Dennis, who had been an officer less than two years, had been with BRPD since Dec. 2021 and graduated the police academy in May 2022.
On June 30, 2023, Officer Dennis was on duty and responded to an address for a domestic violence incident. The woman, whose identity is not being released for her protection, called 911 saying her husband and she were arguing. Officers initially were not going to respond to the call for arguing, but when the woman told dispatchers she was threatening to shoot her husband, officers were dispatched to respond to the home.
Alleged Sexual Misconduct
At the scene of the domestic violence incident, officers decided that no criminal charges were warranted for the husband or wife. However, the officers recommended that the woman stay the night at a hotel. The rationale was that they did not want the day shift to potentially deal with a “shot victim or shot suspect.”
Officer Jason Dennis gave the woman a ride to a local hotel. She allegedly told the officer that she did not want to go to a hotel. Instead, she wanted to be taken to her boyfriend’s house.
During the ride, Officer Dennis is accused of disabling or failing to use any of his body or car (dash) cameras. Records show he allowed the victim to ride in the front seat and allegedly held her hand, despite knowing that having a person ride in the front seat is a safety hazard.
Once at the hotel, she checked into a room and records show that Officer Dennis also went inside the room with her. He then left the room to get a file number. When he returned, records show BRPD’s Officer Dennis is accused of making sexual advances towards the woman and eventually raping her. Officer Dennis then left after the alleged incident.
The very next day on July 1, 2023, the woman made a complaint to BRPD about Officer Dennis. She is said to have given two different statements, but in both statements, she claimed that she felt like she did not have a choice but to submit to Dennis. She said at the time, she was suffering a miscarriage.
BRPD’s investigation into Officer Jason Dennis
On July 5, 2023, Officer Jason Dennis was placed on paid administrative leave while BRPD launched an internal affairs investigation into the alleged sexual misconduct of a woman while on duty, Unfiltered with Kiran has confirmed.
Officer Dennis was accused of several possible policy violations. Those violations include: shirking duties, conduct unbecoming of an officer, body camera violation, failure to carry out orders, falsification of documents, violation of laws, [un]truthfulness and sexual harassment. Several of the policy violations are considered class three violations, meaning the most serious, and if even one class three is sustained, it can result in termination.
Falsifying a police report
UWK has learned when Officer Dennis spoke to the BRPD Internal Affairs investigator about allegedly raping the woman, he denied having any sexual contact with her. He told internal affairs that he spent 3-4 minutes in the victim’s hotel room before going to grab a file. When he returned, he said he spent another 3-5 minutes in the woman’s hotel room. However, his recollection of the time he spent inside of the room with the woman was inaccurate, based on video surveillance from the hotel.
Video surveillance showed Officer Dennis leaving the room 10 minutes after he entered the first time. After he went back to the room with the file for the woman, video surveillance shows he left 23 minutes later from the room.
Along with falsifying documents, Officer Dennis is accused of shirking his duties as a police officer. His own report failed to include the incidents he is said to have responded to: domestic battery and possibly aggravated assault. Further, he’s accused of failing to call the woman’s husband, who was the alleged abuser. He then ran into the husband at a gas station and overheard him talking about the alleged domestic violence incident. Officer Dennis is accused of failing to conduct a follow-up with the husband at that time.
Status of Investigation
The woman had to interview with a specialized division within BRPD. It’s said the woman said at that time that she did not want to pursue any criminal charges. She indicated that she had a lot of emotional issues and did not want to add any struggles.
Anytime a victim asks to drop criminal charges or no longer pursue criminal charges, officers within Baton Rouge Police can still move forward criminally if they can prove the case. In this case though, the police department did not arrest Officer Dennis. An arrest is the first step in turning over a case for prosecution. EBR District Attorney Hillar Moore confirmed he has not received anything on Officer Dennis to prosecute.
It’s why on August 10, 2023, Officer Dennis returned to full-duty status at BRPD after the initial investigation was completed.
Officer Jason Dennis was hired as a BRPD Officer on Dec. 6, 2021 and graduated from the 88th Basic Training Academy in May, 2022. He is currently assigned to work in Uniform Patrol in the Third District Precinct.
Criminal Past
UWK dug into Dennis’ past and found a criminal history before he was hired by BRPD.
In 2017, while attending Southern University, his then-girlfriend filed a restraining order against him in court after several incidents where she allegedly witnessed abuse and stalking behavior. Dennis signed a protective order and agreed to not harass the young woman for a period of 18 months.
Also around this time, Dennis was arrested by the Southern Police Department for simple battery, resisting an officer and simple robbery, a felony. It is likely that these arrests were related to his issues with his then-girlfriend. The charges were later dropped.
In 2019, Dennis was dating another person who also filed a restraining order against him. The judge later refused to make the order permanent, citing a lack of sufficient evidence; however, the judge noted that the case was not frivolous.
Dennis was arrested by Southern PD for stalking in connection to the same girlfriend from 2019. The district attorney charged him in this case, but the charges were later dismissed due to “uncooperative victim,” something that is common in domestic violence cases.
UWK did reach out to Officer Dennis, but as of this report, he has not returned the calls.
BRPD does not work with UWK and does not respond to any emails or questions regarding cases. It’s why BRPD does not have a response in this report.
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So this POS gets to just walk away like every other time? No charges, no justice? What the heck is going on down there anyways?