JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — UPDATE: The State Attorney’s Office has decided not to pursue the case against Shane Metz as of June 27, 2025. 

A Jacksonville sheriff’s officer was arrested last week after police said he took and later threw away a woman’s purse.

Mark Romano, the Director of Investigations and Homeland Security for JSO, reported that on March 20, a woman arrested by officer Shane Metz on San Jose Boulevard on December 17, 2024, claimed she did not receive her purse upon her release.

According to Romano, Metz failed to list the purse as her personal property when she was booked into jail. Investigators found that Metz had discarded the purse in an apartment complex dumpster following the woman’s arrest.

Footage from Metz’s body camera showed him going through the handbag and subsequently placing it, with all contents still inside, into his police vehicle before taking the woman to jail, as noted in the report.

The sheriff’s office arrested Metz on one count of misdemeanor petty theft on March 27. He resigned after the arrest.

He had been employed by the agency for two years and seven months, according to Romano.

“If investigators find that there is probable cause to support a criminal allegation of a JSO employee after a comprehensive investigation, this agency will hold that employee accountable,” Romano said.

This is the fourth arrest of a JSO employee by the agency in 2025.