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WILLIAM R. LEVESQUEA veteran of the Pinellas Sheriff's Office says officers assaulted his girlfriend and violated his rights.
LARGO - Louis M. Evans said he respects police. But what he saw last October, he said, sickened him.
Evans called 911 because he said his girlfriend's son was causing a disturbance. After Largo police arrived, Evans said, an officer dragged his girlfriend across the floor by her hair and punched her in the face several times.
Evans says Officer Frank Schelah did it without any justifiable provocation.
Evans said he ought to know. He is a Pinellas sheriff's deputy with an unblemished, 11-year career.
Largo police opened an internal affairs investigation of Schelah on Thursday after receiving a letter from Evans' attorney threatening a lawsuit.
Evans accuses police of excessive force. And he said police violated his constitutional rights after they arrested him on what he calls trumped up charges of resisting arrest without violence and domestic battery in the same incident involving his girlfriend.
Prosecutors later dropped the charges. A sheriff's internal affairs investigation exonerated Evans of any wrongdoing. He also passed a polygraph test.
"It was an extremely difficult decision," Evans said of his threat to sue. "These are brother officers here. I know nobody is perfect. But to use the kind of force they used wasn't right."
Evans said: "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."
Schelah could not be reached for comment. Largo police Chief Lester Aradi declined to comment, citing the pending investigation.
Evans' girlfriend, Bonnie McGuire, would not comment, according to her attorney, Walter Grantham.
Evans' attorney, John Trevena, said he represents two other officers threatening wrongful arrest suits against other agencies, including Tarpon Springs.
"I think this demonstrates that this can happen to anyone," Trevena said.
The incident began early in the morning of Oct. 20, after Evans came home from work.
At about 5 a.m., Evans said he heard a loud argument between McGuire and her 21-year-old son, Brett McGuire. Evans called 911, then hung up.
When he walked into the hall, Evans said the young man came toward him with clenched fists. Evans said he subdued him to protect himself.
The situation eventually calmed enough for Evans to go into the bathroom to clean up. Police arrived. Evans said he got out of the bathroom and saw two officers arresting his girlfriend's son.
But they were trying to handcuff him, Evans said, near the sofa, where a 2-year-old baby lay. The girl was the sister of Brett McGuire's girlfriend, who also was in the house. Bonnie McGuire moved toward the officers.
"My girlfriend freaked out because they were almost crushing the child," Evans said. "She's screaming, "The baby. The baby.' "
Schelah dragged Bonnie McGuire away by her long hair, Evans said. In moments, he said, the officer started punching her in the face. She was putting her hands up to stop the punches, Evans said. She also was pepper sprayed.
At no point, Evans said, did he see McGuire hit or threaten officers.
"If an officer's life is in danger, yes, you do whatever you can to get safely out of that situation," Evans said. "But nobody's life was in danger."
Schelah, in an interview with internal affairs investigators at the Sheriff's Office, said he saw McGuire hitting other officers in the back of the head as they tried to arrest her son.
"I grabbed her, I pulled her away," he said without noting if he pulled her away by her hair.
Schelah said Evans tried to grab his girlfriend to keep the officer from taking her. At that point, Schelah said, he raised a bottle of pepper spray and told Evans to get back.
He said Evans let go of his girlfriend but refused to get back completely and get on the ground, which resulted in the resisting charge.
"I continued struggling with Ms. McGuire," Schelah said. His report noted he struck McGuire, causing her to collapse. As she continued to fight, Schelah wrote, he struck her two or three times on the back and side of her head.
McGuire has a history of several misdemeanor arrests, including a 2003 DUI conviction and a 1985 resisting arrest without violence charge.
Police charged McGuire with battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest without violence, charges that are pending.
Brett McGuire faces charges of aggravated battery and resisting without violence.
Evans said he is angered by the way officers treated him and his girlfriend. For instance, officers arrested him shoeless and in his underwear.
"They said, "You'll get your clothes in jail,' " Evans said, noting a sheriff's investigator got him something to wear. "Look, I've been doing this for 11 years. And I don't care how much of a pain in the butt someone might be, you make sure they get their clothes and shoes."