- TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A sheriff's
deputy who was videotaped dumping a paralyzed man from a wheelchair onto
a jailhouse floor has been charged with abuse of a disabled person, a sheriff's
official said Friday.
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- Surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows Hillsborough
County deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of
his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on
a warrant after a traffic violation.
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- Sterner, 32, said when he was taken into a booking room
and told to stand up, Jones grew agitated when he told her that he could
not.
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- Marshall-Jones was suspended without pay, and three other
deputies were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
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- Marshall-Jones is charged with abuse of a disabled person,
a third-degree felony, said Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee. If convicted,
she could be sent to prison for five years.
-
- Gee said Marshall-Jones was aware of the warrant for
her arrest, but that he didn't know when she might turn herself in.
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- Marshall-Jones could not be reached by phone for comment
Friday night. A telephone number listed in her name has been disconnected.
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- Sterner, who can drive a car but has not been able to
walk since a 1994 wrestling accident, was arrested at his Riverview home
and taken to the Orient Road Jail on a charge of fleeing and attempting
to elude a police officer, according to records. He had called for charges
to be filed against Marshall-Jones.
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- http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-hklFGiLlaBODhRuLScFLAzfn0QD8UR669G1
-
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- Deputy Was Charged - But Here's What Needs To Happen
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-
- From Jim Kirwan
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
-
- Great that finally charges have been brought, but that's
not the half of it.
-
- Anyone dumb enough not to at least try to ascertain whether
or not the person in a wheelchair actually is a handicapped - before throwing
him to the ground, needs to have more than a taste of her own treatment.
-
- Given what happens traditionally, as in this instance
where six deputies attacked one very small woman, strip-searched her
and then held her naked in a prison cell for a number of hours - for nothing
at all: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19334.htm
-
- So - when "officers" finally arrest one of
their own they need to videotape the entire process. First she (the deputy
sheriff) should be handcuffed, then smacked around for running away:
then given her size, perhaps a dozen officers should begin to strip-search
her on camera, play with the private parts of body and taser her at
the slightest hint of resistance.
-
- This "arrest-process" needs to continue for
at least an hour and then she needs to be left for about twelve
hours naked in an empty cell - all of this before she is fired
and stripped of any pension or rights, then finally she can be charged with
whatever she actually did.
-
- Her superior officer also needs to fired, and the department
investigated for cruel and unusual punishment under color of a badge.
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- The tape need to be made and circulated on the web addressed
to all "LAW ENFORCEMENT TYPES - and this "new standard of treatment
needs to be applied retroactively to all those hundreds of other officers
that have been playing with their tasers on the general public without
any probable cause. This procedure might cause the thugs that hide behind
badges to at least think for a moment before continuing to use this
practice as their "normal response" to any citizen they happen
to encounter.
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- There can no longer continue to be a double-standard
when it comes to the way law enforcement treats the public. Either the
people in uniform deal severely with this incident or the public may
begin to deal with these outrageous situations for themselves.
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- How else can we ever begin to put Law back into "law
& order"?
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- kirwan
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