TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jacksonville law enforcement officials violated the lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Jacksonville when they pulled him out of the car of a 22-year-old black college student and defeated him during a traffic stop.
A video showing Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer punching William McNeill from his car at a stop in February went viral online this summer, sparking national rage.
Manhunt for suspects accused of torture and killing a couple
Prosecutors announced in August that they would not take action after determining that Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer D. Bowers did not constitute a crime, according to an investigation report released by the State Attorney’s Office for Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit.
McNeil’s attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels say the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office policy allows officers to engage in “illegal or excessive force” without fear of affecting racial profiling and “illegal or excessive use of force.” Crump is a black civil rights lawyer and has achieved a nationally renowned acquisition to represent victims of police brutality and vigilante violence.
Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters says there’s more to the story than a viral cell phone video. Black Waters said footage from inside the car “doesn’t comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
The lawsuit is named by another officer named Waters, Bowers and D. Miller, and the government of Jacksonville and Duval County.
Prosecutors reported that the Bowers stopped after McNeil turned on the headlights and failed to buckle the seatbelt.
Confronting the legitimacy of the suspension, McNeill requested that the supervisor respond to the incident. Based on a review of the body camera footage, an interview with an officer by McNeill, prosecutors said the Bowers gave McNeill a dozen “legal orders.”
Crump argues that the officer’s explanations in the case are unreliable, and he has vehemently criticised the prosecutor’s finding that the officers did not commit criminal misconduct, as his clients remained calm as those trained to rule out tension situations escalate violence. Crump said the incident thwarted the civil rights movement and filed a lawsuit when black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
McNeill’s lawyers are also formally asking the Department of Justice to conduct their own investigation into cases called “excessive power” and “systematic failures” by Jacksonville officials.
___Kate Payne is a legional member of the Associated Press/Reports’ American State University News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit, national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on infiltrated issues.
