A Florida man filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against three Jacksonville sheriff’s officers who severely beat him last year after fleeing a traffic stop, alleging they used excessive force that left him with permanent injuries in the head, an eye and a kidney.

Le’Keian Woods, who said he continues to suffer from migraines and eye pain, is suing Jacksonville officers Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough and former officer Josue Garriga for their roles in the Sept. 29, 2023, brawl that drew national attention and local protests for it. severity. Sheriff TK Waters defended the beating as justified.

The beating left Woods with a lacerated kidney, a swollen face and a bloody lip. A fourth officer, Beau Daigle, is being sued for pointing his gun at Woods, who is seeking unspecified damages.

Attorneys Harry Daniels and Norman Harris accused the officers of targeting Woods, 25, and the two friends he was with because they are black. They said officers used the driver’s failure to wear a seat belt as a pretext to stop the truck at gunpoint after Garriga claimed he saw Woods selling cocaine to a man at a gas station. The cocaine charge was later dropped.

“This is a clear case of miscarriage of justice and racial profiling,” Harris said. “This is not a case where law enforcement has seen youths who have warrants for violent crime charges. This is a case where a stop was fabricated based on a seat belt violation and the officers came out with their guns drawn.”

As his two friends complied with the officers’ demands to remain in the truck with their hands visible, Woods bolted.

“I was kind of scared that he was going to shoot me, that I was in a bad situation, so I ran,” said Woods, who was on probation for robbery.

Body camera video shows Sullivan chasing Woods, yelling that he would shoot Woods with his Taser if he didn’t stop. When Sullivan got close enough, he shot Woods twice with the stun gun, and Woods fell flat on his face. Sullivan, Garriga and McCullough punched, elbowed and kneed him in the head and body while trying to handcuff him.

Woods, who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 160 pounds (1.7 meters and 72 kilograms), squirmed and sometimes put one hand or the other behind his back, but then moved it to the other under him. Much more senior officers said they feared he was reaching for a gun. It took them two minutes to put Woods in handcuffs.

Daniels, a former police officer, said that in Florida, kneeing a suspect in the head is considered deadly force, the legal equivalent of shooting someone. It is only used if a life is in danger. He said federal and state lawsuits will be filed against the sheriff’s office later.

The sheriff’s office declined to comment Thursday, and the Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police, the officers’ union, did not return a call seeking comment.

At a press conference three days after Woods’ arrest, Sheriff Waters, who is Black, said body camera videos proved the beating was necessary to stop Woods from harming officers.

“Just because force is ugly doesn’t mean it’s illegal,” Waters said at the time. He said no officers will be disciplined.

The US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division cleared the officers, saying their actions “did not rise” to a level where they could be prosecuted under federal law. Daniels said the department did not do a proper investigation and the decision will be appealed.

Woods was initially charged with resisting arrest with violence, armed trafficking in cocaine and methamphetamine, and other offenses.

But in April, six months after his arrest, prosecutors dropped those charges. He pleaded guilty to resisting arrest without violence for fleeing the truck and was sentenced to nine days in jail that he had already served. Garriga had not recorded Woods’ alleged sale on his video cameras, and neither had other officers seen it.

“Running from the truck is the only crime he committed that day,” Nicole Jamieson, Woods’ criminal defense attorney, said in a phone interview Thursday. Just because officers were yelling at Woods to stop resisting arrest while beating him doesn’t mean he was, she said.

Garriga, 34, could not testify against Woods because he pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. He will receive a sentence of 10 years to life at a hearing scheduled for Nov. 18.

In 2019, Garriga fatally shot a man in a traffic stop over his unfastened seat belt. Prosecutors found the shooting justified, and a lawsuit filed by the dead man’s family was later settled for an undisclosed amount. Daniels was the family’s attorney.

Sullivan and his father, who is also a Jacksonville sheriff’s officer, were suspended in 2020 after an off-duty fight with a woman at a bar. No criminal charges have been filed.

At the time of the beating, Woods was on bond after pleading no contest to a 2017 Tallahassee robbery in which he and his roommate tried to hold up an illegal marijuana dealer at gunpoint.

The dealer pulled out his own gun and shot the roommate as Woods fled. Woods was initially charged with second-degree murder in the death of his roommate, but in 2022 a plea deal was reached that freed him without jail time.