JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax\u2019s Ben\u00a0Becker\u00a0has learned a senior leader in Jacksonville\u2019s Medical Examiner\u2019s Office has returned to work after being placed on administrative leave over a controversial social media post where the city said he, \u201cexpressed enthusiasm for the death of President Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Bob Pfalzgraf was temporarily removed from his duties<\/a> by the City of Jacksonville following a post he made on X on April 6. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n In that post, Pfalzgraf wrote, \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the\u00a0big beautiful\u00a0obituary,\u201d a remark widely interpreted as referencing President Trump in connection with his spending package.<\/p>\n The post quickly went viral after being amplified by a prominent social media account.<\/p>\n In response, the city placed Pfalzgraf on paid administrative leave while officials reviewed the situation.<\/p>\n Warning letter<\/p>\n A formal warning letter obtained by\u00a0Becker\u00a0was issued to Pfalzgraf on April\u00a013, which\u00a0described his conduct as \u201cunacceptable\u201d and said the message was \u201cinappropriate and inconsistent with the standards expected of someone in your position.\u201d <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n The letter also stated that the post \u201cundermines public confidence\u201d in the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office, and Pfalzgraf could face termination if there is another violation of the city\u2019s social media policy.\u00a0It says all employees \u201cmust exercise sound judgement in all public communications.\u201d<\/p>\n Pfalzgraf\u2019s Role<\/p>\n Pfalzgraf has served in the medical examiner\u2019s office since 2017 and has the second highest salary in the City of Jacksonville at $306,653. <\/p>\n Only Chief Medical Examiner Dr. B. Robert Pietak makes more at $434,968. CEOs of independent authorities such as JEA and JTA make more but are not considered city employees as they are hired by boards of directors.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n According to the Medical Examiner\u2019s website, the office provides services to over 1,300,000 people in Northeast Florida who live in two districts:\u00a0<\/p>\n District 3:\u00a0Columbia, Hamilton counties (served by District 4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n District 4: Clay, Duval, Nassau counties\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Becker\u00a0reached out to Pfalzgraf about being reinstated, but there was no response. Previously, Pfalzgraf said he wanted to \u201cwait to see what the city has to say\u201d before commenting.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax\u2019s Ben\u00a0Becker\u00a0has learned a senior leader in Jacksonville\u2019s Medical Examiner\u2019s Office has returned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,104860,104859,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-235095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-dr-b-robert-pietak","tag-dr-bob-pfalzgraf","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}