Post by WaTcHeR on Mar 23, 2006 11:25:29 GMT -5
03/23/2006 - 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.
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.
