Suit Filed After White Jacksonville Cops Try to Beat Black Man to Death to Enforce Their Seat Belt Law. Police claim Video Only Creates “the Illusion" of Excessive Force, Feds Fail to Charge Cops

From [HERE] and [HERE] Attorneys for a Black man brutally beaten by Jacksonville officers in a viral video last year announced Thursday a federal lawsuit against the officers involved in the incident.

Footage showed Le’Keian Woods bloodied and bruised as officers surrounded him after a traffic stop on Sept. 29, 2023. A mugshot showed Woods with two swollen, black eyes and lacerations on his face, sparking public outrage. 

More than a year later, Woods spoke briefly about the incident alongside his attorneys in a news conference outside the Bryan Simpson United States Courthouse in Jacksonville.

“I was stopped at a traffic stop and I ran. I got kind of scared; I knew they was going to shoot me. I panicked and I ran,” Woods told reporters, adding that he continues to endure “a lot of migraine pain, a lot of eyesight pain” as a result of the beating. 

An image from cellphone video shows Le’Keian Woods surrounded by officers as he's taken into custody.Ruby Anderson via AP

Woods’ attorney Harry Daniels announced the lawsuit against Detectives Beau Daigle, Trey McCullough and Hunter Sullivan and now-former Detective Josue Garriga, accusing them of excessive use of force. According to the lawsuit, the officers violated Woods’ Fourth Amendment right when they pulled him over for “an alleged seatbelt violation” and brutally beat Woods after he fled. The lawsuit states that Woods is still receiving medical care and suffers from myriad mental health symptoms, according to NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville.

“You had three deputy sheriffs … who weighed over 200 pounds beating Le’Keian, who may have weighed 150 pounds soaking wet. He had already been tased, he was already disoriented,” Daniels said, adding that at least one of the officers kneed Woods in the head “multiple times.” 

Officers alleged that they saw Woods engaged in a drug transaction before pulling him over for a traffic stop. He ran as they handcuffed two other people in the traffic stop, according to the body camera video and an arrest report. At the time, the sheriff’s office also alleged that the video created “the illusion of an inappropriate use of force.” Sheriff T.K. Waters said last October that “just because force is ugly does not mean it is unlawful or contrary to policy.”

Daniels, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, on Thursday denied that Woods was part of any drug deal. 

Body camera video showed detectives chasing Woods through a yard, a parking lot and a grassy area before they used a stun gun on him. Woods was seen falling first onto a paved street with one arm beneath him. Then, detectives were seen hitting him in his face, bloodying his jaw and kneeing him in the head while they yelled for him to put his hands behind his back.

Woods was hospitalized for days after the incident with, his attorneys said, a ruptured kidney and head injuries. 

Woods later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor resisting police without violence, and all other charges against him — armed trafficking in cocaine, armed possession of a controlled substance, armed trafficking in amphetamine, and tampering with evidence — were dropped, some as part of a plea deal, according to the Florida Times-Union.

The U.S. Department of Justice reviewed the arrest and concluded last November in a letter to Waters: “Based on the known information, this incident does not give rise to a prosecutable violation of the federal civil rights laws. As a result, we are closing our review of this matter.”

"The Defendants' [officers'] actions and use of force, as described herein, were also malicious and/or involved reckless, callous, and deliberate indifference to Mr. Woods’ federally protected rights," the lawsuit states. "The force used by the Defendants shocks the conscience and violated the Fourth Amendment right of Mr. Woods."

According to the suit, Wood "continues to suffer ongoing emotional distress, with significant PTSD type symptoms, including sadness, anxiety, stress, anger, depression, frustration, sleeplessness, nightmares, and flashbacks from his assault."

"I wanna be very clear, we're not filing this lawsuit just for the appeasement of Le'Keian, on his mother, on his family, this lawsuit has been filed to try to seek a measure of justice," Woods' attorney, Harry Daniels, said in a statement. "A measure of justice that as a man, or a jury, or a judge can only give to one. I think that it's time that we acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office."