‘Lucky to be Alive’: Florida Cops Who Tossed Black Man Around ‘Like a Ragdoll’ Over a Seatbelt Violation In Vicious Beating Caught On Video Will Face a Federal Lawsuit
The Florida sheriff’s deputy who initiated the traffic stop on Le’Keian Woods last year had already killed a Black man in his previous job before he was hired at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, where he ended up killing another Black man.
And he is now awaiting sentencing for sex crimes with children after pleading guilty in July, facing anywhere between 10 years to life in prison, according to the United States Department of Justice.
So perhaps Josue Garriga III was not the most credible witness when he claimed to have seen Woods, a then-24-year-old Black man, conducting a drug transaction at a gas station which led to deputies pulling the car over for a seatbelt violation.
That stop led to several deputies tasering, punching, kneeing and slamming Wood’s face to the ground, leaving him with a traumatic brain injury, a ruptured kidney, nerve damage and swelling to his eyes and face that resulted in vision impairment in his left eye that still exists.
On Thursday, a lawsuit was filed against Garriga and three other deputies involved in the beating, including Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough and Beau Daigle. According to the lawsuit filed by attorney Harry M. Daniels, who is based in Atlanta:
At the time of the beating by Defendants Garriga, Sullivan, and McCullough, Mr. Woods was not armed with a weapon, nor did he pose an imminent threat to the Defendants officers or the public.Mr. Woods was not reaching for a weapon in his waistband. Mr. Woods’ waistband was in plain sight of all of the Defendants officers who assaulted him.
Mr. Woods’ injuries include but are not limited to, loss of constitutional and federal rights, physical injuries, impairments and disfigurement, great pain and emotional distress, and/or aggravation of pre-existing conditions, and ongoing special damages medically/psychologically related treatment caused by the unconstitutional and moving forces concerted conduct of all these Defendants.
Watch the police body camera footage below:
The Beating
The incident took place on Sept. 29, 2023, while the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office gang unit was conducting surveillance at a gas station which they described in their report was in a “known gang area.”
Garriga was the only deputy to claim to have seen a drug transaction take place between men in two separate vehicles at the gas station and he notified the other deputies who were in unmarked police cars which began following the Dodge Durango where Woods was sitting in the passenger’s seat.
The cops claim in their report that the driver’s side window was open and they could see the driver was not wearing a seatbelt which led to them pulling the vehicle over.
The lawsuit states that Woods took off running because he feared being shot to death by the deputies, who then ran after him and tasered him in the back, causing him to fall on the ground which was when they began beating on him.
A woman riding passenger in another car began recording the tail end of the attack, capturing a deputy holding Woods up by his hair, revealing a swollen, bloody face.
Woods was charged with several felonies including armed trafficking in amphetamine and cocaine as well as armed possession of a controlled substance – even though he was not armed. He was also charged with tampering with evidence, possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest with violence even though all evidence shows the deputies were the only ones being violent during the arrest.
But the state attorney’s office reduced the charges to a single misdemeanor of resisting arrest without violence based on the fact that he tried to run away from the traffic stop. He was sentenced to nine days in jail which was the time he had already served.
“If this video of the officers repeatedly assaulting Le’Keian, slamming his head in the ground and tossing him around like a ragdoll while he’s handcuffed and defenseless isn’t enough to convince you that these officers need to be off the street, just look at Le’Keian’s face,” Daniels said in a statement at the time. “He looks like he just went 12 rounds with a professional boxer. He’s lucky to be alive.”
Woods’ attorneys wrote a letter to the Department of Justice asking the federal agency to investigate the beating but DOJ responded by saying they generally only investigate agencies that display “a system ‘pattern or practice’ depriving people of constitutional rights.” But the feds also said they would be “monitoring the incident.”
Watch the video recorded by witness below.
Sexual Predator with a Badge
Garriga’s law enforcement career came to a crashing end one month before Woods’ charges were reduced, when Garriga was arrested on sex crimes involving an underage girl.
He pleaded guilty in July and is still awaiting sentencing. According to the press release from the USDOJ:
Garriga faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 10 years, up to life, in federal prison. Following his release from prison, Garriga will be required to register as a sex offender and serve a term of supervised release of at least 5 years. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to court documents, Garriga, who at the time was a detective with the gang unit of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), met the minor victim, who was 17 years old, at church in 2023. Garriga pursued a sexual relationship with the child victim until approximately March 7, 2024. This included reaching up the child victim’s skirt while she worked serving coffee before church service. At some point, Garriga used his JSO-issued cell phone and an undercover Instagram account to reach out to the child victim and obtained her phone number. Garriga then used his personal cell phone to communicate with the child victim, directing their messages to an end-to-end encrypted app set to automatically delete the messages after 24 hours.
Garriga requested nude photos from the child victim and sent her nude photos of himself. Garriga also video chatted with the child victim over FaceTime more than 120 times, including when the child victim showered. On one occasion, Garriga requested that the child victim livestream herself masturbating.
On at least two occasions, Garriga used his JSO work vehicle to travel to the child victim’s neighborhood in Clay County to meet with the minor victim and engage in sexual contact that was illegal under Florida law. On another occasion, Garriga met with the child victim at a coffee shop in Clay County and enticed her to his JSO work vehicle, where he engaged in unlawful sexual activity with the child victim and refused to let her leave until she performed oral sex on him.
Garriga, who was hired by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in July 2018, was one of two officers who shot and killed a Black man named James Johnson in December 2019. Both cops were cleared but the incident resulted in a $200,000 settlement for the victim’s family.
In 2015, he was one of four Putnam County sheriff’s deputies who shot and killed another Black man named Andrew Williams.