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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.
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.
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.
Marshall-Jones was suspended without pay, and three other deputies were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
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.
Marshall-Jones could not be reached by phone for comment Friday night. A telephone number listed in her name has been disconnected.
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.
Deputy Was Charged - But Here's What Needs To Happen
From Jim Kirwan
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.
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.
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.
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.
How else can we ever begin to put Law back into "law & order"?
Jim Kirwan
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