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County to pay for bust mistake

By WILL VAN SANT
Published January 11, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Pinellas County Sheriff's Office] This Aug. 17 video clip taken by a security camera at Enterprise Car Rental on 5th Avenue N in St. Petersburg shows Pinellas County Sheriff's Office narcotics personnel taking Desmond Small, 26, and Christopher Lobban, 20, into custody. Officers thought the men had been involved in a marijuana deal, but had the wrong guys. View video

They burst into a St. Petersburg car rental agency with guns drawn and took down two men, roughing them up as they lay handcuffed on the floor.

An easy bust, but there was a problem for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office: They had the wrong guys, and a security camera caught the scene on tape.

"It's an unfortunate incident," Sheriff Jim Coats said early Wednesday, "something we are not proud of."

Shortly before Coats spoke, Pinellas County released a $100,000 settlement agreement reached with the two St. Petersburg men, Desmond Small, 26, and Christopher Lobban, 20.

County Attorney Susan Churuti supported the settlement and said given the results of a Sheriff's Office investigation, the two men could have sought damages for civil rights violations, wrongful arrest and personal injury.

The payout of taxpayer funds stems from a botched surveillance operation on Aug. 17. Sheriff's officials said narcotics division members were on the streets of St. Petersburg, tracking 30 pounds of marijuana that had been shipped from Arizona.

As they kept watch on a house on 21st Avenue N, they saw a white Chevy Lumina with tinted windows. The tags showed it belonged to someone suspected of marijuana trafficking.

Narcotics division operatives in an unmarked car trailed the Lumina and its two black male occupants, but lost sight of their target about 4:30 p.m., at 5th Avenue N and 37th Street.

Within five minutes, two narcotics division sergeants in a blue, unmarked Ford F-150 spotted another white Lumina with tinted windows at 5th Avenue S and 34th Street.

Two black men were inside.

The sergeants followed the men to a nearby Enterprise Rental Car on 5th Avenue S. After the men entered, the two lawmen rushed in to arrest them.

If the deputies had run a check on the tag, they would have found they had been following the wrong car. Both were white Luminas of similar model years with tinted windows and Florida plates that began with the letter "C".

But one carried suspects in a drug investigation and the other carried Small and Lobban, two friends who worked at Suntasia Marketing in Largo.

"It was, quite frankly, sloppy police work," Coats said.

Men forced to floor, blood ruins carpet

The tape shows Small and Lobban being handcuffed while on their stomachs. One sergeant put his foot near the back of Small's head and pushed his face into the ground a few times.

"I was like, 'What the hell is going on?' " Small said in an interview with sheriff's investigators released Wednesday. "I said, 'Sir, I didn't do anything.' "

Small suffered abrasions to his face and a cut to his mouth that required stitches. According to Enterprise employees who were present, the carpet was so soiled with blood that it had to be thrown out.

Another sergeant, the one supervising the operation, is shown exchanging high-fives with a colleague, then later appears to stomp once on Small's leg as he's on the ground.

Neither Small nor Lobban appear to be aggressively resisting, though the lawmen said in sworn testimony that Small had been uncooperative.

Enterprise employees told investigators that Small and Lobban were quick to heed instructions, but wanted to understand why they were being arrested.

"I don't think they were resisting other than just being kind of shocked," said Enterprise employee Brad Bess.

Bess and others said they never heard the lawmen use any racial slurs, as Small and Lobban recalled.

Officers suspended, both plan appeals

Coats said he was very upset by the unnecessary force and the officers' high-fiving one another in public. But he stressed there was no egregious battering of the men as some had suspected the tape would show.

"Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation was put out about this case," he said. "This is not a Rodney King situation, it's not a Martin Lee Anderson situation."

Because the two sergeants are undercover officers, their faces are obscured in the tape. Their names also were withheld.

Both men, each of whom have more than 20 years experience on the force, are now serving 12-day suspensions without pay and have been put on workplace probation for a year. Coats said the two have unblemished records and are well-regarded.

County Commissioner Ken Welch said Coats has the discretion to mete out whatever discipline he feels is deserved, but that he would have gone further.

Welch said he was particularly troubled by the fact that the sergeants thought one of the men was armed, and that they nonetheless entered a business with citizens present, guns drawn.

"If I were sheriff, I think I would send a stronger message that that kind of conduct is unacceptable," Welch said. "And I'm not sure I want to see those two particular officers working narcotics in south county. I plan to raise that issue with the sheriff."

The two sergeants have filed notices of intent to appeal their punishments.

[Last modified January 11, 2007, 00:41:22]