Cocoa City Councilman Alex Goins on Tuesday backed his call for Brevard County Sheriff’s Office employees to wear body cameras.
After watching a dashcam video of the incident in which the young man was tasted multiple times but survived, talking about the incident and speaking with Ivy, Goins said:
“This situation turned out pretty good, but at the same time, let me say that I still believe in body cameras.” We believe this will help both police officers and citizens,” Goins added.
more:Brevard lawmakers say they Tasered an autistic man with a knife. And where’s the blade?
Goins’ remarks came after a Facebook video that attacked Florida Today’s report released dashboard camera footage on Monday showing parts of the Dec. 22 meeting between lawmakers and 23-year-old Jarquez Johnson. Ivey said in the video that Johnson is autistic and has a developmental disorder that his family says puts him at the mental age of 16, but that he has a surrogate. After refusing to heed the orders of the ..knife.
Dashcam video clearly showed Johnson holding a long, shiny object in his right hand during the initial confrontation, but no knife was found at the scene. 1 caller, Ivey, and one of the agents who responded identified the object as entirely a knife. Another attorney said in the official report of the incident that Johnson had “an object in his right hand,” but because it was dark, the attorney was unable to say exactly what it was. Lawmakers have not formally arrested Johnson and he has not been charged with any crime.
In response to initial community concerns about the incident, Goins questioned the BCSO’s training and how responders handled the encounter. Deputies arrived on the scene in response to a caller’s report that a man with a knife was lurking around a neighbor’s house.
The dashcam footage was included in BSCO’s Facebook video post, in which Ivey attacked FLORIDA TODAY. The article cited a friend and Johnson’s mother who witnessed the encounter, both of whom criticized and questioned police for using a stun gun on a person with autism. Regarding the claim that Johnson had a knife.
FLORIDA TODAY’s first article also quoted a police expert, who said it was likely that the agent would have acted appropriately in response to such a call, but that Knife He said that the disappearance of the is inexplicable.
Conflicting accounts renewed the ongoing debate over the lack of body cameras in the sheriff’s office. The dashcam video released by the sheriff did not show the full extent of the encounter. FLORIDA TODAY requested a full drive recorder video, a mandatory use of force report, a stun gun log recording how the stun gun was used, and numerous related records and documents.
Goins says lawmakers acted appropriately
Goins said on Tuesday that his doubts about the incident were largely resolved by dashcam video showing agents confronting Mr Johnson outside a friend’s house on the 4000 block of Lake Circle near Cocoa. .
The two-minute clip corroborates an anecdotal report that agents found Johnson in the front yard of his home with what he believed to be a knife. According to the video, the deputies ordered Johnson to “drop the knife” at gunpoint for nearly a minute before holstering the gun and impacting Johnson with a projectile stun gun. In the video, one of the lawmakers can be heard calling on others to move to “non-lethal” units. The video ends with Johnson chasing the deputies off the screen.
Unterio Crawford, a friend of Johnson’s who lives at home and whose cell phone video of the incident had previously circulated on social media, said the dashcam video of Johnson screaming that he has autism. can be heard in the background of
Clips of Crawford picked up a deputy over Johnson at the side of the house and struck him with a stun gun while he struggled to handcuff him. Used the stun gun at least four times.
After watching the sheriff’s video, Goins said he felt it was the right thing for the sheriff to switch from a pistol to a stun gun. I think the cops did a pretty good job with the transition,” he said.
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Goyne’s previous comments provoked the Sheriff’s ire, who called out Goyne’s name twice, put a picture of Goyne on screen in a Facebook video, said he was “aiming” at Cocoa Alderman, He called him “the so-called elected leader.”
“Don’t try to make it look important, try to be real. Pick up the phone and call to ask what really happened,” Ivey said, referring to the Goins comment. “This is the end of your lesson.”
Goins declined to comment directly on the jab, saying he spoke with Ivy afterwards and cleared the air.
“Yeah, he called me and it’s all good. That’s it,” Goins said. “He’s going to do what it takes to protect the people.”
Ivey Defends Lawmakers in Facebook Video
Much of Ivey’s 20-minute video was framed as an attack on FLORIDA TODAY’s coverage of the incident, pointing out that no knife was found at the scene and accusing Crawford and Johnson that Johnson had the knife. Reported skepticism from mothers.
Ivey’s office did not respond to multiple messages asking for additional information prior to the publication of the original story, but the video was used to confirm previous work completed by a surrogate in interactions with people with autism. It revealed new details about the background to the incident, including highlighting training. .
The sheriff also sees sheriff’s office records showing Johnson was previously hospitalized for involuntary mental health treatment after being beaten at least three times under Florida’s Baker Act. bottom.
Tiffany Johnson, the mother of Jaluces Johnson, said Wednesday that her son had dedicated himself to treating an explosion in the past, but disputed the sheriff’s office’s explanation of the previous incident, saying he punched someone. He said he hadn’t tried to, he was just acting as a symptom of his condition. She said her son had no adult or juvenile criminal record.
Ivey said in the video that the agent did not find the knife as he left the scene after only a cursory search due to the large “excited” crowd that had formed.
“To defuse the situation, our agents loaded the subject into a police car and drove him to the hospital for medical clearance,” he said.
more:A deputy accused in a shootout pulled the trigger twice on a gun he thought was unloaded, the report says.
Crawford, who witnessed the incident, told Florida Today that he never saw Johnson with a knife, and that when he went out to clean his yard a few days later, he found nothing resembling a knife. Tiffany Johnson was unconvinced by the sheriff’s video.
A New Controversy Over Body Cameras
Ivey has long resisted his agency’s body cameras. The sheriff cites the high cost of cameras and the technology that supports them, as well as various studies on whether cameras lead to better behavior for officers.
Community activist Dwight Siegler said it was good that the deputy’s car’s dashboard camera caught part of the incident, but that dashcams are no substitute for body cameras.
“What if the incident wasn’t happening in front of the car? The car can’t be around the house or behind the building or inside the residence,” Seigler said. The fact that he couldn’t, he said, was “the perfect reason” for having a body camera in that situation.
Siegler, who is running as a Republican for the First District County Commission seat currently held by Rita Pritchett, said that funding body cameras for the sheriff’s office would be a priority if he was elected. Pritchett is not seeking re-election in 2024 due to term limits.
South Brevard NAACP President Bennie Jackson Jr. understands that body cameras have their pros and cons, but says they can go a long way in building trust in the community.
“Communities feel more comfortable when law enforcement has body cameras,” Jackson said. .”
Eric Rogers is a watchdog reporter for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Rogers at 321-242-3717 or esrogers@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter: @EricRogersFT.
