Michael Fultz was Brevard County’s Deputy of the Year in 2025. The same day he received that award, his ex-girlfriend filed a complaint that triggered an internal investigation. What investigators found: a Nazi salute photo, racial slurs in text messages, and confirmed proof that Fultz used a taxpayer-funded surveillance system to track her movements after denying he’d done it.
Brevard County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Fultz resigned from the force after an internal investigation detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, racism, and abuse, including his use of Flock automated license plate readers to stalk his ex-girlfriend.
How the Investigation Started
Fultz was hired by Brevard County in 2024 and named the department’s Deputy of the Year in 2025. On the same day as that award ceremony, his ex-girlfriend sent the sheriff’s office a formal letter of complaint detailing a long list of concerns about his behavior. That letter was enough to trigger a full internal investigation, one that ultimately ran 43 pages and uncovered far more than the initial complaint likely anticipated.
The Flock Stalking Investigation
The investigation’s central finding involved Fultz’s misuse of Flock, a license-plate-reading surveillance system used by law enforcement nationwide. Investigators found that Fultz had used Flock to track his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle and had bragged to her about doing it.
When questioned directly, Fultz told investigators he remembered the conversation with his ex but denied checking her vehicle registration to spy on her or out of revenge. Investigators didn’t take his word for it. They audited the actual Flock logs and confirmed that Fultz had, in fact, tracked her movements. When running a Flock search, users are required to log a reason for the query. Fultz’s justification for searching his ex’s plate: simply “investigation.”
Investigators also determined Fultz had accessed Flock while off-duty, using his agency-issued cellphone rather than his laptop. Fultz offered a shifting set of explanations, at one point suggesting he might have just been demonstrating how the system worked to her, and separately claiming he already had her location through Snapchat, so tracking her through Flock “wouldn’t have benefitted him.” Investigators’ own data contradicted the underlying denial regardless of his explanation for it.
What Else the Investigation Found
Fultz’s misuse of Flock was just one part of a far broader set of findings. According to the investigation, Fultz had posed for photos giving a Nazi salute after shaving his mustache to resemble Adolf Hitler. His ex-girlfriend also provided photographic evidence of Fultz holding a firearm, identified in the investigation as an agency-issued Walther, to her head and inserting it into her mouth during a sexual encounter. She told investigators the act was consensual at the time but that she came to see it as inappropriate for a sheriff’s deputy. The investigation notes that the encounter occurred after Fultz had shot and killed a knife-wielding man who charged him in April 2025, an incident Brevard County confirmed separately at the time.
The investigation also documented Fultz’s frequent use of racial slurs in text messages with his ex, which he attributed to growing up in a foster home with Black parents and siblings, telling investigators the language “became normal to use,” and separately citing the card game Cards Against Humanity as a source of what he called “edgy humor.”
Beyond that, investigators found Fultz had been pulled over for speeding on his motorcycle and covering his license plate on at least four separate occasions, including one stop clocked at 111 mph, and that he walked away from each stop after identifying himself as law enforcement. After being directly ordered to keep his motorcycle’s plate visible, investigators say he drove out of the sheriff’s office parking lot without a plate attached within 30 minutes, an incident captured on video. Fultz told investigators the speeding and plate-covering were for content on his motorcycle-themed social media accounts, and that he sometimes used AI to generate images for those posts.
He Was Allowed to Resign
Despite the scope of the findings, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office allowed Fultz to resign rather than face formal termination. The investigation’s own conclusion states plainly: “Although termination is warranted for your egregious misconduct, due to the fact you are no longer employed by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, this Administrative Investigation is closed and referred to file.” In practice, resigning let the case close without the formal record a termination would have created.
The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office provided a copy of the investigation but did not respond to a request for comment on the findings.
Part of a National Pattern of Flock Abuse by Police
Fultz’s case adds to a growing list of law enforcement officers losing their jobs, and sometimes facing arrest, for misusing Flock’s surveillance capabilities. An officer in South Carolina was arrested this July after misusing the system. The town of Greer, South Carolina, suspended its entire Flock contract after discovering two of its own officers had used it to stalk their exes. Another South Carolina officer was fired after an audit found she’d used Flock 166 separate times to track an ex-partner.
What sets Fultz apart, notably, is that he actually told the woman he was surveilling that he was using the system to do it. Investigators note that most victims of this kind of law enforcement stalking don’t discover it’s happening until it’s gone on for months or years.
A deputy honored as his department’s best of the year was, by his own department’s investigation, using government surveillance tools to track an ex-partner, posing for Nazi salute photos, and using his service weapon in ways his own internal report described as inappropriate for law enforcement. He wasn’t fired for any of it. He was allowed to walk away, and the case was quietly closed.