Four people tied to Gadsden County law enforcement and public schools — a sheriff's lieutenant, the school district's safety coordinator, a former high school principal and a former assistant principal — have been arrested on charges that they failed to report child abuse, the State Attorney's Office for Florida's Second Judicial Circuit announced on Thursday, November 5, 2026.
Source: FOX 49 (WTLH, Tallahassee) reporting the State Attorney's Office announcement
The State Attorney's Office identified the four defendants as Christopher L. Daniels, a lieutenant who surrendered to the Gadsden County Jail after an arrest warrant was issued; Tiffany Buckhalt, the Gadsden County School District's school safety coordinator and a Quincy Police Department reserve lieutenant; Tameka Leeks, former principal of Gadsden County High School; and James Vernon, former assistant principal of Gadsden County High School. All four face charges of failure to report child abuse, abandonment or neglect under Florida law. The investigation was conducted by the State Attorney's Office, which also handled the arrests.
Where the charges come from: the Canidate investigation
State Attorney Jack Campbell confirmed that Thursday's charges stem from the investigation into Sedale Canidate, a former Gadsden County High School resource deputy who was arrested on July 10 by U.S. Marshals on multiple felony charges involving students. According to the reporting of the State Attorney's announcement, investigators uncovered allegations involving several students aged 15 to 17. Awaaz Punjab does not name or identify any student: the students in this case are minors, and only their age range and county have been reported.
What prosecutors have not said matters as much as what they have. The State Attorney's Office has not publicly detailed what each of the four defendants allegedly knew, when they allegedly learned it, or which specific incidents form the basis of the new charges. The charges are allegations: Daniels, Buckhalt, Leeks and Vernon are presumed innocent unless the State Attorney's Office proves the charges in court, and this report attributes every element of the case to the State Attorney's announcement as reported by FOX 49 in Tallahassee.
The law they are accused of breaking
Florida is a universal mandated-reporting state for child abuse. The Gadsden County School District's own mandated-reporting memorandum, issued from the office of Superintendent Elijah Key, Jr., reminds district employees that they are mandated reporters under Florida Statute 39.201 and must immediately report known or suspected incidents of child abuse, abandonment or neglect — by calling the state Child Abuse Hotline, which is available 24 hours a day, or through the state's web reporting system, with a report to a supervisor in addition when the matter involves a district student or employee.
The same district memorandum spells out the criminal exposure in plain terms: in Florida, failure to report child abuse or neglect is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, five years of probation and a $5,000 fine, and it carries a Level 1 offence severity ranking under Florida's Criminal Punishment Code. Those are the penalties the district itself warned its employees about — the same legal duty the State Attorney's Office now alleges four officials, two of them senior school administrators and two of them law-enforcement officers, failed to meet.
Why this case reaches beyond one school
A school resource deputy is a law-enforcement officer placed inside a school precisely so that students have a trusted adult in uniform. When the deputy himself was arrested in July on felony charges involving students, the question for the district and the sheriff's office became who knew what, and when — and whether the people whose legal duty was to report suspicion up the chain did so. Thursday's arrests are the prosecutors' answer so far: the failure-to-report investigation has now reached a sheriff's lieutenant, the district's own safety coordinator — the official responsible for school safety — and the high school's former principal and assistant principal.
Gadsden County is a Florida Panhandle county west of Tallahassee; its county seat is Quincy, where Buckhalt also serves as a reserve lieutenant with the Quincy Police Department, and the county sits in the Second Judicial Circuit prosecuted by State Attorney Jack Campbell's office. For parents in the county, the practical questions are immediate: what reporting happened inside Gadsden County High School, what has changed in how the district handles allegations involving its own employees, and whether more arrests follow. Neither the district nor the sheriff's office had publicly answered those questions in the reporting available when the arrests were announced.
Under Florida Statute 39.201, a person who knows or has reasonable cause to suspect child abuse, abandonment or neglect must report it immediately to the state Child Abuse Hotline (available 24/7) or the state web reporting system. Telling a supervisor does not replace that duty for district employees — the district's own memorandum requires the hotline report, with a supervisor notified in addition when a district student or employee is involved.
What happens next
The four defendants now face their failure-to-report charges in the Gadsden County courts, prosecuted by the same State Attorney's Office that investigated and arrested them. Daniels has already surrendered at the Gadsden County Jail on his warrant. No trial dates or further hearings had been publicly announced in the reporting at the time of the arrests, and the underlying case against Canidate, arrested in July, continues separately. Awaaz Punjab will follow both cases, and will report what the State Attorney's Office files about what each defendant is alleged to have known — the central unanswered question in Thursday's announcement.