A Collier County sergeant involved in the recent violent arrest of a Chokoloskee man who later died had fatally shot a fleeing suspect in 2006 and pulled his gun on a man in a park while off duty, according to Sheriff’s Office reports.

The State Attorney’s Office declined to press charges against Brian Cohen, who in 2006 was a sheriff’s corporal three years on the job, saying his actions were justifiable self-defense when he fatally shot an Immokalee man. The officer was exonerated by the Collier Sheriff’s Office after an internal affairs investigation.

But in 2015, Cohen was demoted and placed on one year’s probation after a series of events, which included brandishing his gun at a man at a dog park while off duty.

In the days after Hurricane Irma, Cohen was the on-shift supervisor in the Everglades District when he was called early Sept. 14 to the Chokoloskee Bridge. Devan Rewis, 31, a seventh-generation resident of Chokoloskee, was being detained there for violating the 9 p.m. curfew in place after the hurricane.

After less than seven hours in police custody, Rewis was found unresponsive in a jail cell at 8:30 a.m. He was taken off life support the next day, Sept. 15, at NCH Baker Hospital Downtown. His family was told he was brain-dead.

The Collier Sheriff’s Office issued a statement that Rewis had suffered “an apparent medical episode.”

“We are continuing to conduct a death investigation as well as a parallel administrative investigation in this case,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Karie Partington said Wednesday. “We are interviewing witnesses, processing evidence and waiting for lab results, including the toxicology report.”

In the 2006 shooting case, Cohen was chasing a suspect, Charlie Torres, after the Immokalee man had stolen a truck March 8. Cohen shot Torres when Torres drove the truck directly at him while he stood outside his patrol car, according to the 2006 internal reports.

The other internal investigation involved three incidents over three years, in which Cohen was accused of threatening residents while off duty. There was insufficient evidence in the first two incidents, according to reports. The third incident involved the man in the dog park, and evidence showed Cohen’s action was improper.

Eddie Rewis said he has no details about what caused his son to become brain-dead less than seven hours in custody after his arrest at 2 a.m. Sept 14. He thinks his son was beaten by officers at the bridge. He said his son had bruises and welts on his face and neck when he was on life support at the hospital.

“There were other people coming through that checkpoint, and they didn’t arrest them,” Rewis, 53, said, of the bridge patrol.

He does not know Cohen personally.

“I’ve heard people around town have had problems with him,” Rewis said. “He yells at them; that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know. I didn’t live in that world.”

Rewis said deputies have had “a thing”’ against his son because of his history with drugs.

“They just harassed him super bad,” Rewis said.

Collier records show Devan Rewis was arrested 18 times since 2007, including on charges of possession of heroin with the intent to sell in 2014. He was sentenced in 2014 to three years in prison on heroin charges and for alligator poaching. He was released in September 2016, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.

Previously, Devan Rewis had been sentenced in 2008 to one year in state prison on cocaine charges and was released in February 2009.

He also was arrested July 31. He was charged with possession of narcotics paraphernalia and a Miami-Dade County warrant accused him of being a fugitive, records state.

Rewis’ aunt Martha Daniels said that even if her nephew had been using drugs before his last arrest, the officers at the scene “still beat the boy brain-dead.”

The arrest report states her nephew resisted Cohen and two other officers who tackled him at the bridge. A Tampa police officer and a University of South Florida police officer were assisting the curfew enforcement in Collier after Irma. The Chokoloskee Bridge needed 24/7 coverage because of damage.

When Rewis was fighting the officers, his finger landed on the trigger of Cohen’s stun gun and “activated the device longer” on Rewis himself, the arrest report states.

“That is a darn cover-up and everybody knows that,” Daniels, 55, said. “That is definitely a cover-up.”

If there was a struggle, her nephew was trying to stop being beaten up by the officers, she said. Daniels said she does not know Cohen.

The Tampa policeman assigned to the Chokoloskee Bridge was Officer Mark Landry, who has worked for the Tampa agency since May 2015. His discipline history includes a letter of counseling for a traffic crash in December 2015.

Records were not readily available from the USF Police Department about the USF officer involved when Rewis was arrested.

Rewis was a passenger in a car driven by his cousin’s wife, Angela Goff, when they were stopped at the bridge at 1:32 a.m. Sept. 14. The two had left Chokoloskee to get supplies. Daniels had given Goff, her daughter-in-law, $200 for supplies.

They went to the NCH Downtown so Rewis could visit his grandmother Lorna Rewis, who had raised him since he was 3. Lorna Rewis told the Daily News — days after her grandson’s death — that he had not been high when he visited her at the hospital.

Rewis and Goff also visited one of his former girlfriends, who pleaded for them to stay at her house for the night because of the curfew.

Landry, the Tampa officer, was stationed at the bridge when he stopped Goff and Devan Rewis. He immediately recognized Rewis as a person of interest from a crime bulletin posted in a district office for the Collier Sheriff’s Office.

“The defendant was extremely nervous and was unable to sit still while inside the vehicle,” the Tampa officer wrote in his incident report.

After the Collier sergeant and the USF officer arrived and Devan Rewis was ordered out of the car, Rewis reached under the front passenger seat and looked around, according to the Tampa officer’s report.

The report continues: Devan Rewis got out of the car and pushed the USF officer in the chest and began running down the embankment near the bridge. He was tackled face down in a construction zone with gravel and debris. He continued fighting the officers.

At one point, Rewis turned his head to the side and began to spit. The Tampa officer struck him with two fists to the right side of his face, according to the Tampa police report.

The Tampa officer saw Cohen, the Collier sergeant, use his stun gun on Devan Rewis and said he himself was exposed briefly to the stun gun. The Tampa officer saw Cohen use the “drive” stun gun, but his report does not include a reference to Rewis’ fingers being on the trigger.

A search of the car found a black purse that contained drug paraphernalia and a pipe. Goff was arrested on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia and violating the curfew.

Rewis’ service is scheduled for Saturday at Hodges Funeral Home at Naples Memorial Gardens in North Naples. The viewing will begin at 10 a.m. and a service at 11 a.m.