ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is parting ways with the U.S Marshals Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force following a dispute over body-camera policies, Sheriff John Mina says.

The decision comes a little more than a week after Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon confirmed he made the same move.

“We have not worked any cases with the U.S. Marshals since August," Mina says. 

The dispute comes down to who has control over the release of body-camera video, Mina says. As it stands now, body-camera video captured by deputies who work on the U.S. Marshals task force would be considered federal record, meaning the Orange County Sheriff’s Office would not have say about when or if that video could be made public.

“That’s just not going to work here in Orange County because we want to be able to be transparent, tell the community what is going on, what happened and here is the video and be able to release that," Mina says. 

He says he does not believe the move will affect the ability of the sheriff’s office to apprehend dangerous fugitives.

“We have the opportunity to work with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” Mina says. “It’s a statewide agency, and also, I can request mutual aid with any other sheriff in the state of Florida.”

Work to bring fugitives to justice will continue, the sheriff says, but federal money to pay deputies overtime on those task forces will go away.

Mina says he hopes to rekindle the relationship with the U.S. Marshals service in the future.

“Until they modify that body-worn camera policy, I don’t think that is going to be possible,” Mina says. “…It does seem like the new administration wants all the federal task force and those federal agencies to wear body-worn cameras, and hopefully, this will help in those memorandum of understandings and let us be able to release the video when we need to be able to.” 

According to a spokesperson, the U.S. Marshals Service parted ways with the Orlando Police Department on good terms, and Mina says the relationship between the Marshals Service and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is in good standing.