A federal judge is allowing a case to proceed that alleges excessive force by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in two separate incidents during a woman’s 2016 arrest.
In her civil suit, Mayra Martinez says JSO and the city of Jacksonville are responsible for her being beaten unconscious and left for nearly 15 minutes on the floor of the intake area of the Duval County Jail on April 27, 2016.
Judge Harvey Schlesinger last week dismissed the city’s legal defenses to almost all of Martinez’s claims. In his ruling, he referred to 10 previous examples of excessive force by JSO and wrote, “These incidents demonstrate that the City repeatedly took no corrective steps to remedy the officers’ actions.”
Martinez’s lawyer, John Phillips, said in an email to WJCT News, “It has been Ms. Martinez’s contention since the beginning that JSO’s defense (by and through the general counsel’s office) has been legally unsound.”
Phillips said Officer Akinyemi Borisade was originally charged with a misdemeanor, but that was expunged after Borisade said he had been trained to “do some of the actions” that were captured on videos at the jail and where Martinez was initially arrested, outside Scores strip club on University Boulevard.
Related
- Read the judge’s ruling
- Video of the incidents posted by the Law Offices of John M. Phillips (viewer descretion advised)
