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Sorry, this can't happen in ANY century... |
Posted on 03/25/2006 4:21:34 PM PST by Know your rights
TALLAHASSEE — After a nighttime traffic stop in North Florida, a Delray Beach family waited for about an hour as they let sheriff deputies search the car.
The search turned up nothing, both the McCloud family and Jefferson County sheriff's deputies agree.
But what happened next on that July 2001 night is the subject of a jury trial that started Monday in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, where Arnetta McCloud and her daughter claim deputies abused, illegally searched and falsely imprisoned them.
The family is seeking damages "between six and seven figures," attorney Guy Rubin of Stuart said.
The daughter, who was 15 at the time, sobbed as she told the jury Monday that she stood on the roadside when deputies forced her to drop her pants and underwear and used a flashlight to search her for cocaine.
"I was so scared I didn't know what to do," she said. "They took my mom away from me. They took my daddy away and all the officers were watching as cars passed by. I felt so violated."
McCloud said Sgt. Michael Joyner threatened to take her "to a children's home if I didn't tell him what he wanted to know."
"I didn't know what he was talking about," she said. "I didn't know if we were going to walk away from that night."
Arnetta McCloud also was strip-searched without consent, left in the back of a squad car and forced to lead deputies to her sister's Monticello home, Rubin said Monday in his opening statement.
When they pulled up to her sister's house, where the McClouds had been celebrating Arnetta's birthday, Joyner used a racial slur when he told Arnetta, who is black, that her family was "lucky to own that home.... My great-granddaddy used to own that home," Rubin said.
Once inside the house, Joyner again used a racial slur as members of Arnetta's sister's family were awakened and dragged from their beds, but deputies failed to find any cocaine, Rubin said.
"This kind of behavior can't happen in America in the 21st century," Rubin told the jury. "But this is the kind of disturbing and shocking conduct that was common in Jefferson County."
The attorney for the sheriff's office and deputies, however, said the daughter offered to be strip-searched, Arnetta McCloud invited deputies to check her sister's home and the family was "cooperative and pleasant" during the search of the house, just as they were when they gave consent to check the car.
"It was all by the book," attorney David Cornell said.
Deputies had placed the McClouds under surveillance earlier that July day, Cornell said, after an informant told an officer that he used $450 the sheriff's office gave him to buy cocaine from Freddy McCloud, Arnetta's husband.
Freddy, the informant reported, had another half-ounce he was pushing. Months later, Freddy McCloud was charged with selling cocaine but the case was dropped when the informant refused to cooperate.
The McClouds were pulled over about 12:30 that night when they were moving the birthday party to Tallahassee and the home of another sister of Arnetta's.
The searches of the car, the McCloud women and the home of Arnetta McCloud's sister lasted about four hours.
Cornell said the McClouds "were cooperating all night long."
In addition to Joyner, who has since retired from the sheriff's office, the other defendants include Sheriff David Hobbs and deputies William Hayes, David Clark, Gerald Knecht and George Stitson, who now works for the Leon County Sheriff's Office.
The trial is expected to last about a week.
It's hard to imagine this happening but even if she agreed she was a child and searching on the side of the road?
Pretty stupid cops if they did a strip search on a minor, permission or not and on the side of the road no less.
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Sorry, this can't happen in ANY century... |
It is simply commonsense not to strip search a 15 year-old minor on the side of the road. Police are out of control across this country.
The only way to stop it is to hit each individual along with each individual police department in their wallets.
And just after they're strip-searched at the side of a road.
And some alleged "conservatives" think that's great so long as they're trying to prevent someone from getting high.
In Iran it is encouraged.
L
"The problem is that an award by the jury only penalizes the taxpayers."
So I suppose you're against being able to sue the government for redress of grievances? Or do you have another method of government funding besides tax collection?
And yet even Iran has a serious drug problem.
some alleged "conservatives" are self-righteous bigots angry beyond reason, IMHO.
same goes for "liberals," too, for that matter.
Nonetheless, the police were out of line with the minor.
"This officers should be fired and whatever money is awarded from this trial should come solely out of this police departments budget. Not one extra dime of tax-payer money should go to paying off this debt (if the verdict comes in as such). This police department should pay this lawsuit simply out of NOT receiving newer vehicles, not receiving overtime pay, ect, ect,."
Of course, THAT won't be detrimental to taxpayers... [sarcasm]
Dear Know your rights,
If I were confronted in this scenario, I'm not sure I'd know MY rights here...against police. Unfortunately.
Those cops should be fired and charged with a felony for inappropriate contact with a minor...upon conviction they should be put in general population...bet they get strip searched, including all orifices.
The bloated pensions must be stripped too.
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