Lakeland, Florida police are looking into a case in which they punched and tased a teenager because he reportedly broke the rules by staying at an apartment complex pool after being told to leave.
An arrest document obtained by ABC News shows that the 16-year-old boy was charged by Lakeland police with trespassing, two counts of battery on a police officer, and resisting an officer with violence.
Christopher McKee, one of the two officers who arrested the people on May 26, said in a police report that he was reacting to a 911 call from the apartment complex management who said that people who weren’t tenants shouldn’t have been at the apartment pool. When the police came, the manager of the apartment complex told them that everyone who wasn’t living there was breaking the law.
Under oath, McKee said, “I gave [the subject] several more legal orders to leave the property or he would be arrested.” “[The subject] kept ignoring my commands and put his hand on my face while saying, ‘I don’t have to talk to you.'” At this point, I chose to arrest the person for trespassing.
The police officer writes in the report that the teen hit the officer in the face with a locked fist after being touched to take him into custody. ABC News got a video of the event from a cell phone. It shows two police officers punching, pulling the teen’s hair, and tasing him before he agrees to be handcuffed. The video doesn’t show what happened before the accident.
The boy’s mother, Ja’Tae Lewis, told ABC News that her son and his friends were leaving the land because police told them to. After them, one of the cops told her son that the next time he came to the complex, he should work out his “fat a–” at the gym instead of the pool.
Lewis said that her son told her he was rude to the police officer and doesn’t remember what he said. Lewis says that the officer then walked up to her son and her son put his hand up to the officer’s face to show that he was not close. Based on Lewis, that’s when the cop got physical with her son.
For now, Lakeland police told ABC News that the public cannot see the body camera video of the event. The arrest document says that the teen was taken to a nearby hospital and then to a juvenile assessment center.
ABC News was told by Lakeland police that Chief of Police Sam Taylor had already asked for an internal review by our Office of Professional Standards. “We will not be able to release any other material related to this case until the administrative review is closed.”