A Daytona Beach Shores public safety lieutenant and his wife, a detective sergeant with the department, twice put their 3 1/2 year-old son in jail during potty training last year.

Lt. Michael Schoenbrod bragged to a Department of Children and Family Services that he “was getting the response I expected from him” when the boy began crying and promised to never poop in his pants again, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.

The newspaper said it wasn’t clear if Schoenbrod or Det. Sgt. Jessica Long faced any discipline from the city for the toddler’s October 5 and 6 jail time. On the second visit, the child was handcuffed.

The News-Journal said it obtained copies of memos from Public Safety Director Michael Fowler telling the two there was a professional standards investigation, but the results of that investigation have not been made public. Fowler told the paper he was discussing the matter with the city attorney before commenting, and City Clerk Cheri Schwab said that the actual records had been “sealed by a judge.”

There are two case records, one that lists Schoenbrod “et al” as plaintiffs against the State Attorney’s Office “et al,” dated March 24 and a second two months later filed by Schoenbrod and Long against State Attorney R.J. Lizza.

The March case is the one that is the clerk said is sealed. More information is available about the second case, although the initial filing and several motions are marked “confidential.”

In the May 18 filing, the two police officers asked a judge to impose an undisclosed order against Larizza.

Further, the newspaper said, an attorney in the Volusia County Clerk of Court’s Office said that the case files have not been sealed but are instead being kept confidential until a hearing on the confidentiality is held and that they are, at any rate, separate from the police internal investigation, which is not subject to the same rules as the court cases.

The newspaper said that public records showed that both Schoenbrod and Long had 20 hours of leave without pay on their May pay stubs and that they and their attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Video of Schoenbrod’s interview with the caseworker was captured on a Volusia County deputy’s body camera. In the video, Schoenbrod said it wasn’t the first time he’d put his own child in jail for “discipline.” Nine years earlier, he said, he put his then 4-year-old son in jail for misbehaving in preschool. He said the boy admitted hitting a girl at school.

“I took him to the jail and he sat there. And I watched him … and he was crying and everything, and to this day, if you mention, like, that incident, he’s just like, ‘I would never do that again.’ It was effective,” Schoenbrod said. “So that’s why I did it with this. He didn’t hit anybody, but I figured the same thing, discipline. And he didn’t want to go back, so …”

In the video, Long calls the investigation into the couple’s actions “insane” while Schoenbrod says “It’s just disgusting that somebody would drag our family through the mud like this.”

The Department of Children and Families acknowledged receiving a request for comment but did not provide a comment. And a Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesperson said that the newspaper’s request for information about the investigation has been forwarded to the public records department for processing.

The News-Journal said residents have been battling for months for information about the case, which remains shrouded in secrecy.

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[Featured image: Jessica Long and Michael Schoenbrod/Daytona Beach Shores Department of Public Safety]