Surfside Beach accused officer of falsifying report. But he can get another police job

A former Surfside Beach police officer initially terminated after allegedly falsifying an arrest report was instead allowed to resign and potentially continue his law enforcement career elsewhere.

Former Cpl. Kyle Lundgren was terminated June 21 for “misconduct and performance issues following an internal investigation,” according to his record with the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.

But the Town of Surfside Beach convened a grievance panel July 27 that recommended Lundgren be reinstated and allowed to resign, which he did Aug. 4, his personnel file shows.

The board — comprised of Magistrate Judge Christopher Arakas, recently departed Fire Chief Rob Clemons and Public Works Director John Adair — unanimously ruled that the department either failed to prove its allegations against Lundgren or that the actions didn’t warrant termination, according to a ruling written by Arakas.

Neither Lundgren, nor Surfside Beach Police Chief Kenneth Hofmann responded to requests for comment prior to publication.

What was the misconduct?

The initial termination stemmed from several accusations by a recruit who Lundgren was training, internal police records show. The most serious of the accusations was that Lundgren altered an arrest report submitted by the recruit in a way that made it false.

Lundgren and the recruit had arrested a man in April for driving under the influence, but they decided not to charge the driver, according to internal records. The recruit documented witnessing a nearly full liquor bottle with a broken seal in the car, but Lundgren changed the report to state that the bottle was empty, the recruit later told her captain.

Lundgren told the recruit he made the change because otherwise they might get in trouble for not charging the driver or confiscating the bottle, the internal report shows. The recruit changed the report the next day to remove any mention of the bottle.

Sgt. John Gambone was instructed to open an internal investigation into the alleged incident along with concerns that Lundgren was retaliating against the recruit, according to a letter from Hofmann. The recruit also alleged Lundgren directed her to pick up McDonald’s and deliver it to a former officer at a beachwear store where they were now working and was regularly spending excessive shift time at a Refuel gas station convenience store, Hofmann’s letter outlines.

Was the investigation appropriate?

Gambone, who is himself facing a lawsuit for an alleged use of excessive force, appears to have been Lundgren’s supervisor based on how Hofmann addressed him in the letter.

“I also want to remind you that these things are allegedly happening under your command,” he wrote. “Please consider how you might be more effective at supervision moving forward.”

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who now teaches criminal justice at University of South Carolina, told The Sun News that ideally a police department would have a non-supervisor conduct internal investigations.

“The first best solution is to separate those functions to take out the potential incentive for the supervisor to minimize the employee’s error, so they can also minimize their own error,” Stoughton said.

But he added that smaller police agencies likely don’t have the capacity to split up personnel in this way, and there’s nothing inherently inappropriate in asking a supervisor to conduct an internal investigation.

Gambone ruled that the allegation Lundgren knowingly and intentionally altered the arrest report without the recruit’s knowledge unfounded, according to his report. Lundgren told Gambone he changed the report because he saw the bottle as empty, and Gambone wrote that he believed both parties just had a different perception, though Lundgren should’ve been more thorough as the training officer and taken the bottle as evidence.

Lundgren did admit to making the statement about potentially getting in trouble if command staff saw they failed to charge the driver with a full bottle nearby, which Gambone chided as “unacceptable,” the report states.

The internal investigation ultimately found that Lundgren violated town policies and showed a lack of good judgment on numerous occasions and recommended he receive a written warning, according to the report.

Nothing in Lundgren’s personnel file shows why the department went against that recommendation and instead opted for termination.

Police departures

Lundgren, who joined the department in December 2020 after years as an officer in Florida and a few months with the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, had four previous disciplinary reports in his personnel file.

Those incidents involved initiating a vehicle pursuit against town policy and throwing out a bag of THC gummies without properly documenting the disposal.

Lundgren’s resignation is the seventh for the Surfside Beach Police Department since December 2022, according to resignation letters acquired by The Sun News through the Freedom of Information Act.

At least three of those officers left to join other local police agencies, state records show.