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Officer Kyle Kirby, a 12 year veteran of the Live Oak Police Department, has been arrested for possessing child pornography. He was caught with images depicting small children involved in sexual acts on his police issued laptop.

According to a 66-page federal complaint, FBI agents and investigators from other agencies raided Kirby’s home Oct. 22 in connection to an undercover online child pornography investigation.

The FBI was unable to locate any computers at Officer Kirby’s home, so Chief Buddy Williams gave FBI agents permission to search the computer inside Kirby’s patrol car, where they found 87 images that “either depicted children engaged in sexually explicit conduct or that had titles” suggesting they contained child pornography, the FBI said in a release.

Additionally, Officer Kirby’s search history showed that he searched for child porn for children as young as 5-years-old and that he watched several videos of prepubescent children engaging in numerous sexual acts with adults.

Officer Kirby made his initial court appearance on Wednesday, where he was appointed a public defender. His next court appearance will be on Friday (10/29), in which a trial date should be scheduled. If convicted, Officer Kirby faces 10 years in prison and will have to register as a sex offender.

Chief Williams said that he found out about the child porn investigation by the FBI last week, but did not suspend SGT Kirby until after the FBI raided his home on Thursday.

Chief Williams says he is hoping that this one incident won’t break the public’s trust:

I hope this is something that will get past us as soon as we can because as I’ve said we love this town we love this community and we got great men and women who work here.

(I’m not sure what rock Chief Williams has been living under lately, but I would guess the public’s trust in his police department has already been broken.)

US Attorney’s Office Press Release:

Jacksonville, Florida – United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announces today that Kyle Adam Kirby (35, Live Oak) has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, and a potential life term of supervision. Kirby was arrested today, without incident, at the Live Oak Police Department. His detention hearing is scheduled for October 30, 2015. According to the criminal complaint, on October 22, 2015, FBI agents and other law enforcement officers executed a federal search warrant at Kirby’s residence, as the result of an undercover online child pornography investigation. No computers were recovered from the home. That same morning, the Live Oak police chief authorized the agents to inspect and search the computer located inside Kirby’s patrol car. A forensic examination of the patrol car computer used by Kirby revealed that it contained at least 87 thumbnail images in a “Downloads” folder that either depicted children engaged in sexually explicit conduct or that had titles indicative of this case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

Feel free to send Officer Kirby a message on his private Facebook page