{"id":52165,"date":"2022-01-31T22:48:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T03:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=52165"},"modified":"2022-01-31T22:48:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T03:48:17","slug":"excessive-force-lawsuit-filed-by-lehigh-acres-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/01\/excessive-force-lawsuit-filed-by-lehigh-acres-man\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Excessive force lawsuit filed by Lehigh Acres man<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Lehigh Acres man is suing two Fort Myers police officers for excessive force and unlawful detainment will get his day in court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Holley Jones claims the two Fort Myers police officers had no reason or justification for shooting him with a taser. He argues that the officer\u2019s body camera video helps make his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A federal jury will take up the case Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jones, the man who got tased, claims that FMPD officers Andrew Barlow and his partner Chris Robles violated his civil rights in his civil lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" src=\"https:\/\/w3.mp.lura.live\/player\/prod\/v3\/anvload.html?key=eyJtIjoiQU5WIiwidiI6IjQ2MDI0OTciLCJhbnZhY2siOiJhbnZhdG9fbWNwX2Fudl93ZWJfcHJvZF83OTE0MDc0OTBmNGMxZWYyYTRiY2IyMTEwM2UwY2IxYmNiMzM1MmIzIiwic2hhcmVMaW5rIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2lua25ld3MuY29tLzIwMjIvMDEvMzEvZmVkZXJhbC1qdXJ5LXRvLWhlYXItZm1wZC1leGNlc3NpdmUtZm9yY2UtbGF3c3VpdC1maWxlZC1ieS1sZWhpZ2gtYWNyZXMtbWFuLyIsInBsdWdpbnMiOnsiYW5hbHl0aWNzIjp7InBkYiI6Ijg5Mzg4NDkyIiwic2VydmVyVVJMIjoiaHR0cDovL2FuYWx5dGljcy12Mi5hbnZhdG8uY29tL1ZpZGVvQW5hbHl0aWNzL3NyYy92aWRlb19sb2cucGhwIn0sImRmcCI6eyJjbGllbnRTaWRlIjp7ImFkVGFnVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9wdWJhZHMuZy5kb3VibGVjbGljay5uZXQvZ2FtcGFkL2Fkcz9zej02NDB4NDgwJml1PS8yMDU0MjMwOC9QcmVfcm9sbF90ZXN0JmltcGw9cyZnZGZwX3JlcT0xJmVudj12cCZvdXRwdXQ9dmFzdCZ1bnZpZXdlZF9wb3NpdGlvbl9zdGFydD0xJnVybD1bcmVmZXJyZXJfdXJsXSZkZXNjcmlwdGlvbl91cmw9W2Rlc2NyaXB0aW9uX3VybF0mY29ycmVsYXRvcj1bdGltZXN0YW1wXSJ9fSwicmVhbFRpbWVBbmFseXRpY3MiOnRydWV9LCJodG1sNSI6dHJ1ZX0%3D\"  width =\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawsuit references an incident from April 15, 2018, when officers Barlow and Robles arrived at a 7-Eleven at 11501 State Road 82 in Lehigh Acres in response to a \u201cdisorderly, intoxicated male.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is unknown if the call was about Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the officer\u2019s body cameras did capture video of the incident. In it, you hear one officer say, \u201cHey buddy when you get a minute, I want to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the video, Jones tries to shake the officer\u2019s hand. Officer Robles says, \u201cdon\u2019t touch me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the report, the officer says Jones pushed his arm, so he grabbed his taser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On two separate occasions during the incident, the clerk told the officers that Jones was not bothering her, but the officers asked for Jones to step outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He goes outside before walking back inside the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Officer Barlow followed Jones back in the store. That is when he fired his taser, knocking Jones to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can watch the full incident captured by an FMPD body camera below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an interview with WINK News in 2019, Jones explains why he went back inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t know what he was going to do next, so I just decided that whatever he was going to do, he was going to do inside the store in front of everybody. I thought he was going to shoot me for real,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, the officers cuffed Jones and filed four different charges against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The state attorney eventually dropped all charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think the crime here was shopping while black,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FMPD conducted an excessive force investigation and cleared officers Barlow and Robles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat their internal affairs did is they rubber-stamped an unlawful action,\u201d said Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both officers are still on the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Lehigh Acres man is suing two Fort Myers police officers for excessive force and unlawful detainment will get his day in court on Tuesday. Holley Jones claims the two&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":52166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[1066],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52167,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52165\/revisions\/52167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}