A man is suing Florida officers who brutally beat him after a chase

A Florida man filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against three Jacksonville sheriff’s officers who brutally beat him last year after he fled a traffic stop, alleging they used excessive force that caused permanent injuries to his head, eye and kidney.

Le’Kean Woods, who said he still suffers from migraines and eye pain, is suing Jacksonville officers Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough and former officer Joshua Garrig for their roles in the Sept. 29, 2023, beating that drew national and local attention. protests because of its severity. Sheriff TK Waters said the beating was justified.

Woods suffered a ruptured kidney, a swollen face and a bloody lip from the beating. A fourth officer, Beau Daigle, was sued for pointing his gun at Woods, who is seeking unspecified damages.

Defense attorneys Harry Daniels and Norman Harris accused the officers of targeting Woods, 25, and two friends he was with because they are black. They said officers used the driver’s failure to wear a seat belt as an excuse to stop the pickup truck at gunpoint after Garriga said he saw Woods selling cocaine to a man at a gas station. The cocaine charge was later dropped.

“This is a clear case of miscarriage of justice and racial profiling,” Harris said. “This is not a case where law enforcement has seen young people who have warrants for violent crimes. This is a case where the stop was fabricated due to a seat belt violation and the cops came out with guns drawn.”

While his two friends complied with the officers’ demands to remain in the truck with their hands visible, Woods fled.

“I was a little scared that he was going to shoot me, that I was in a serious situation, so I ran,” said Woods, who was on probation for robbery.

Dash cam footage shows Sullivan chasing after Woods, yelling that he would shoot Woods with a taser if he didn’t stop. When Sullivan got close enough, he fired two Taser shots at Woods and Woods fell flat on his face. Sullivan, Garriga and McCullough punched, elbowed and kneed him in the head and body while trying to handcuff him.

Woods, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds (1.7 meters and 72 kilograms), squirmed and sometimes put one arm behind his back, then the other, then moved the other under him. The much larger officers said they were afraid he was reaching for a gun. It took them two minutes to handcuff Woods.

Daniels, a former police officer, said that in Florida, kneeing a suspect in the head is considered deadly force, the legal equivalent of shooting someone. It can be used only in case of threat to life. He said federal and state lawsuits will be filed later against the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office declined to comment Thursday, and the Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police, the officers’ union, did not return a call seeking comment.

At a press conference three days after Woods’ arrest, Sheriff Waters, who is black, said body camera footage proved the beating was necessary to keep Woods from harming police.

“Just because force is ugly doesn’t mean it’s illegal,” Waters said at the time. He said none of the officers will be disciplined.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division fired the officers, saying their actions “did not rise” to the level of prosecution under federal law. Daniels said the department did not conduct a proper investigation and the decision will be appealed.

Woods was initially charged with resisting arrest, armed trafficking in cocaine and methamphetamine, and other crimes.

But in April, six months after his arrest, prosecutors dropped those charges. He pleaded guilty to resisting arrest without violence for fleeing from the truck and was sentenced to nine days in jail, which he had already served. Garriga did not record Woods’ alleged sale on his body cameras, and none of the other officers saw it.

“Running from the truck is the only crime he committed that day,” Nicole Jamieson, Woods’ criminal defense attorney, said in a phone interview Thursday. Just because the officers yelled at Woods to stop resisting arrest while they were beating him doesn’t mean he was actually resisting, she said.

Garriga, 34, could not testify against Woods because he pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges of having sex with a 17-year-old girl. At the hearing scheduled for November 18, he will be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 2019, Garriga fatally shot a man at a traffic stop because his seat belt was unbuckled. Prosecutors ruled the shooting justified, and a lawsuit filed by the victim’s family was later settled for an undisclosed amount. Daniels was the family’s attorney.

Sullivan and his father, who is also a Jacksonville sheriff’s officer, were suspended in 2020 after an off-duty bar fight with a woman. No criminal case was initiated.

At the time of the beating, Woods was on probation after pleading not guilty to a 2017 Tallahassee robbery in which he and his roommate attempted to kill an illegal marijuana dealer at gunpoint.

The dealer pulled out his gun and fatally shot the roommate as Woods fled. Woods was initially charged with second-degree murder in the death of his roommate, but a plea deal was reached in 2022 that freed him without jail time.

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