Dallas County deputy livestreamed traffic stop on TikTok, revealing driver's personal info, lawsuit claims
DALLAS - UPDATE: A day after this story aired, the Dallas County Sheriff's Office released the following statement on this case:
"This issue was referred to and investigated by our internal affairs department in 2021. The investigation yielded a sustained complaint. As a result of the investigation, Deputy Castillo received a temporary two-day suspension without pay. Deputy Castillo remains in our employ and has not had any other internal affairs investigations. Given that this matter has resulted in litigation, no further comments will be made."
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The Dallas County sheriff is not responding to questions about a lawsuit alleging a sheriff's deputy livestreamed a traffic stop on social media.
The accuser said this happened two years ago and just recently filed the lawsuit.
Whether or not the deputy was disciplined is unclear, because the sheriff is just not addressing the allegations.
The lawsuit was filed this month, but the alleged incident happened two years ago.
The complainant’s lawyer said the deputy livestreamed a traffic stop, showing his client's personal info to more than 100 people.
Attorney James Roberts said his client was driving at night back in March 2021 and was pulled over by a Dallas County Sheriff's Office deputy on I-20, near Balch Springs.
According to the lawsuit, the deputy livestreamed the traffic stop on the social media app TikTok.
"Our client is claiming that there was a violation of his privacy rights," Roberts said.
Roberts said the deputy pulled his client over for speeding, something his client denies doing.
The livestream allegedly showed his client's driver’s license, with the lawsuit documents including a screenshot of the license.
Roberts said someone found his client online, using the information from the license, to alert him about being on a livestream.
"That's really the scary part, is that, you know, we know that someone can use this information because someone did use this information," Roberts said. "Thankfully, they use this information to alert our client what happened, and not for some sort of nefarious reason."
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The Garland Police Department said Adrian Castillo had a bond forfeiture warrant for Indecency with a Child.
FOX 4 reached out to the Dallas County Sheriff's Office for a response, wanting to ask them to confirm if the man named in the lawsuit is a deputy, to ask if the deputy is still with the department, and if he was disciplined following the alleged incident.
Even though it’s been two years since the alleged misconduct, no one from the Dallas County Sheriff's Office responded to multiple attempts for comment.
"We did an open records request because we know that there was an internal affairs investigation. We have not been provided the investigation, but we do know because the sergeant who led the internal affairs investigation emailed our client afterward that the officer was disciplined for violation of the social media policy," Roberts said.
Roberts said his client is suffering from anxiety following the incident.
He is also questioning if this deputy has done this to other Dallas County drivers.
"How many other people have had their information put out over the Internet when an officer, a Dallas County sheriff's officer, is livestreaming that information? Because I would venture to guess this isn't the only officer doing it," he said.
The lawsuit provided a screenshot of an email reportedly confirming an internal investigation, but the sheriff’s office did not respond to our questions.