Minis In The News

[JPMINITUCSON]

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- Four sheriff's deputies have been suspended after purposely tipping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor, authorities said.

Orient Road Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows veteran 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.

"She was irked that I wasn't complying to what she was telling me to do," he told The Tampa Tribune. "It didn't register with her that she was asking me to do something I can't do."
....As for Sterner, he was arrested at his Riverview home and taken to the jail Jan. 29 on a charge of fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer, according to records. He posted $2,000 bond and was released Feb 3.

A warrant for Sterner's arrest was issued after an Oct. 25 incident, in which Tampa police stopped him in Ybor City. He was stopped while driving a Mini Cooper that had been fitted with hand pedals and was cited for blocking an intersection.

"My client was stopped that night and was given a traffic citation, so how could he be fleeing and eluding?" Sterner's lawyer John Trevena said. "We're very skeptical about the basis for the charge itself."