Edgewater Police Officer Placed on Leave for Alleged Wrongful Arrest

Officer Daniel Rippeon of the Edgewater Police Department has been placed on administrative leave amid allegations that he arrested a CVS employee without cause. The video of Rippeon arresting 22-year-old Paul Wert has sparked community outrage since it first began circulating online in recent days. “Following the arrest of Wert, a formal internal affairs investigation was initiated,” the Edgewater Police Department told residents in a Facebook post. “Officer Rippeon has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.” In the bodycam video of the arrest, Wert appears to be sitting outside the CVS he works at after getting off his shift. He was reported to have been waiting for a ride home in coverage of the incident by the Daytona Beach News-Journal. After asking him for identification, Rippeon can be seen holding a taser up to Wert, and subsequently arresting him without an immediately obvious reason. He mentioned on his radio that Wert was resisting arrest. Later on in the video Rippeon can be heard threatening Wert with a taser and to have him bitten by a police K9 if he didn’t stop moving as Rippeon handcuffed him. At one point a vehicle which appeared to be a Lyft rideshare that Wert called for to get himself home, and Rippeon can be heard telling the driver that Wert no longer required a ride as he himself would be giving him one. Records show Wert was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail on May 10th, charged with obstructing an officer without violence. He was released from custody three days later on the 13th. Wert, who’s listed as a Daytona Beach resident, has no prior arrest records in Volusia County. On Wednesday, prosecutors with the State Attorney’s Office agreed to drop all charges against Wert. No additional charges were ever filed beyond the initial resisting an officer charge, and so Assistant State Attorney Spencer Hathaway filed a ‘no information’ document expressing their decision not to prosecute Wert further. Daniel Rippeon was hired by the Edgewater Police Department in 2022, and the agency posted photos of his swearing-in on August 3rd of that year. He was previously a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who was stationed in South Korea and then deployed to Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom from 2013 to 2014. He is originally from Port Orange, and also has experience working for the DeLand Police Deparment. “We are committed to providing our community with full transparency,” the Edgewater Police Department continued in their post. “Our department operates with the highest standards of accountability and we are dedicated to keeping the public informed as additional details become available.”