PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Ryan Gould said shortly after he called police to his complex's swimming pool in May, Palm Beach Gardens Officer Bethany Guerriero hopped out of the squad car, and pointed a pistol at Gould, ordering him to stay faced down on a parking lot adjacent to the pool.
"I see this lady screaming and shaking at me,” Gould said from Chicago via Zoom. "And I'm just in a swimsuit looking for help, anything could have happened."
Gould said he called police after a dispute with a woman at the pool, and when her husband arrived, Gould said he happened to be armed.
"I wanted police to come in, calm down the situation," Gould said.
Three and a half months after the confrontation, Palm Beach Gardens Police fired Guerriero, whose personnel record shows she's been in trouble before.
In 2020, she was suspended when she, "accessed a restricted database for personal information involving a domestic related matter."
In 2019, Police reprimanded her for what was called an "instigative verbal exchange" with a suspect before an arrest at the Palm Beach Gardens Mall.
WPTV tried to contact Guerriero through the police union.
She did not want to be interviewed.
But in addition to the discipline, her personnel file also shows she's been recognized for saving lives.
She and another officer pulled a woman from a sinking car that drove into a lake in 2008, then in 2015 she lept into a canal. A newspaper headline read "Bethany Guerriero risked her life to save a wayward swimmer caught in a pipe."
But Ryan Gould said he was an innocent man who sees Guerriero as someone who simply drew a gun on him for no reason, then drove him to the Palm Beach County Jail.
"I'm next in line to go be strip-searched, get a uniform, and be sent to jail,” Gould said. "And I'm told, 'It's my lucky day,' I'm free to go."
Gould said he is considering a lawsuit.
A police union official said the former Palm Beach Gardens Officer plans to appeal her firing through arbitration.
