- Police Brutality Watch

NAACP Involved

The already embattled Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is facing another accusation of brutality. A man said he was battered and abused by JSO officers on Christmas Eve. Phillip Edwards plans to file a formal complaint with the JSO after he said he suffered a broken wrist and torn ligaments when police beat him up. Edwards said he was sitting inside a friend's car in the parking lot of a nightclub when police officers asked him to leave. When he refused, he said officers dragged him out of the car and got violent. "I was pulled out of my vehicle, slammed to the ground, wrongly treated by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office," he said. Edwards said he locked his keys in his car, and when police asked him to leave the area, he said he couldn't. "I told him my keys were locked in car. He said, 'I don't care,'" Edwards said. According to the police report, Edwards was aggressive and told the officer, "Come over here and tell me that." Edwards said that isn't true. He has no record and has never been in trouble with the law before. He said the officer stepped towards him as he was sitting inside of his friend's car. "He pulled me from the vehicle for no reason at all -- didn't ask me to step out of the vehicle at all," Edwards said. "He twisted my arm to the point it was severely injured, kneed me in my back, then pulled my hair." Edwards said the officer bragged to other officers, "I'm taking his dumb a** to jail." "It's one of those things you can't believe until it starts happening," Edwards said. "I'm trying to keep it from happening to somebody else." [more]