Police Beat Man They Thought Was Drunk Driver

An Osceola man has filed a federal lawsuit against Osceola deputies after they found him in his parked vehicle with dangerously low blood sugar. Mistaking him for someone who was intoxicated, Deputy Javier Arroyo reached into the vehicle to take out his keys and then dragged him out. He and five other officers proceeded to beat the man “without any further attempt to assess the situation”. According to the lawsuit.

The driver sustained serious injuries as a result of the beating. These included broken ribs, facial contusions, and a head injury, according to reports. After the beating, he was taken to the hospital where doctors discovered that he did not have any alcohol or drugs in his system. Nonetheless, the victim was handcuffed to his bed for his entire stay even though he was never formally charged with a crime.

According to the police report, someone reported a car matching the victim’s “swerving in and out of traffic.” For what it was worth, the defendant did the right thing by safely getting his vehicle off the road and parking the vehicle in a lot. Everything that happened after that was police behaving ignorantly.

Why Is This Important? 

This is important for a number of reasons. During a time when police brutality is at the forefront of American politics, there are still soe elements out there being protected by police unions who don’t know how to function in a civilized capacity. Even if the man was drunk, there would not have been a need to drag him out of the car and beat him unless that was something that you naturally enjoyed doing and finally ran across an opportunity to do it. Regardless, there is no internal investigation into the incident at the police department and the only reason there might be is the fact that there is now a federal lawsuit.

Secondly, this happens more often than you would think. The police had every right to pull the driver off the road, assess his condition, and ensure that he no longer operated his motor vehicle. Instead, they assumed that he was drunk, punished him for a crime he didn’t commit, and treated him like a criminal even though he did not violate any law and, in fact, pulled off the road when his condition became too severe for him to drive. In case you’re wondering, that is exactly what you should do. But in this case, the man was punished anyway.

Suffice it to say, the police conduct that day was a civil rights violation. The police won’t be able to claim that the man was both in a stupor, appearing unable to hold himself up, and attempting to attack police officers. So the lawsuit against the police will likely be successful. You can now look forward to that money being extracted from your tax dollars.

Talk to an Orlando DUI Attorney Today 

Have you been charged with DUI in Florida? The police don’t always get it right. Call the Florida DUI defense attorneys at the FL DUI Group today and fight the charges against you.

Resource:

orlandosentinel.com/news/osceola-county/os-ne-osceola-sheriff-deputy-lawsuit-20210318-x73zaspjyzbldeo3j3qrkiemwy-story.html