Broward prosecutors won’t file any charges against the 15-year-old student whose head was slammed against the pavement in a forceful off-campus arrest. Cellphone footage of the arrest has gone viral, drawing a public outcry.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that Delucca “Lucca” Rolle, a student at J.P. Taravella High School, wouldn’t face any charge just hours after they met him and one of his attorneys, Sue-Ann Robinson. The Broward Sheriff’s Office had accused Rolle of aggravated assault against an officer, but the charge made “no sense,” Robinson said. And that was underscored by “what we can all see from the video,” she said.
Sheriff’s deputies were recorded pepper-spraying, tackling and punching teens last week outside a Tamarac McDonald’s near the school. The cellphone video shows deputies take Rolle down, with one deputy banging Rolle’s forehead into the pavement and repeatedly punching him in the head, while another deputy handcuffed him.
Rolle, one of two teens who were arrested, suffered a broken nose in the encounter, Robinson said.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office has begun investigating the deputies’ actions that day. While prosecutors decided not to file charges against the 15-year-old student, “the investigation of the sheriff’s deputies’ actions is ongoing,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Rolle’s family also has hired Benjamin Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney, who said he wants the deputies involved to face charges. Crump took to social media to discuss Rolle’s arrest, focusing on race: The two arrested teens are black, while all three deputies seen in the cellphone video are white.
Crump wrote on Instagram that Rolle was a teen beaten by deputies after he “picked up a cellphone that fell out of the pocket of a black boy who was being arrested.” In response, the deputies “pepper-sprayed, brutally beat, and arrested him,” Crump said.
Crump is known for representing the family of Michael Brown, a 17-year-old African-American, who was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Mo. He also represented the family of black teen Trayvon Martin, who in 2012 was killed by George Zimmerman, a white neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford.
“If the Marjory Stoneman Douglas suspect [a white former student who killed 17 people last year] can be brought in gently, unscathed, then there is another way obviously that’s being employed when they’re not arresting black and brown kids that are doing nothing,” Robinson said.
Broward Deputy Christopher Krickovich reported that he and two fellow deputies felt surrounded, outnumbered and threatened by about 200 students on Thursday afternoon in Tamarac. He’s been informed by letter that he and a second deputy are under investigation by the Broward State Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges, according to the deputies’ union president.
The encounter between Rolle and the deputies happened outside McDonald’s, a frequent after-school hangout spot at 8735 N. Pine Island Road.
Rolle had been arrested on charges that included aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer. But a judge last week reduced it to simple battery after defense attorney Richard Della Fera, who represented the boy in court last week, argued the child did nothing wrong, based on what was seen in the video.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel is naming Rolle because Crump is using his name publicly to draw attention to his case. “Starting now, we will seek justice through every avenue possible for Lucca and his family,” Crump said in a prepared statement. “The actions on the video by the officers against Delucca are unconscionable.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office said Krickovich has been placed on restricted assignment pending an investigation. The agency confirmed Tuesday that Sgt. Greg LaCerra, the second deputy involved, also is on restricted assignment.
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony has vowed accountability in the case. “It may take some time, but we will be transparent,” the sheriff said last week. “And if folks need to be held accountable, it shall be done.”
Tony, who was appointed in January as Broward’s first black sheriff, spoke about how the issue of race can surround use-of-force cases against black teens.
“That’s the most electrifying and dangerous situation for a law enforcement administrator to handle,” Tony said. “Any time a white deputy is involved in contact with using force on a black youth, this thing blows up.”
The hashtag #JusticeForLucca has been trending on Twitter. A peaceful rally is planned for Saturday afternoon at Hampton Pines Park in North Lauderdale, with attendees encouraged to wear red. Rolle was wearing a red shirt on the day of his arrest. On Monday, the first day back to school after the incident, protesting students also wore red to school.
Robinson, who is Crump’s partner, said her firm will “absolutely” pursue a civil lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office.
“If we can’t appeal to their humanity to be held accountable, then there’s other ways,” she said.
She said Rolle goes to the McDonald’s every day after school with his friends. After the other student was arrested, his phone fell. Robinson said a deputy kicked it. Then Rolle reached in to retrieve it.
”They are millennials, the phone is an appendage,” she said. That’s when he wound up pepper sprayed, taken to the ground, and his head pound into the pavement.
“He is traumatized because that’s a lot to go through and … you don’t expect someone to unleash that level of violence on you for no reason. And he’s a kid. He’s a ninth grader. He’s 15. I think he’s still going through the shock of it and dealing with his injuries.”
She said police called his mother to get permission to treat him for the pepper spray, but didn’t attend to his nose. He went to the hospital on his own.
“The level of force based on the circumstances is unjustifiable. His head is being slammed into the concrete. It’s very tough to watch. The officers have to be held accountable.”
lhuriash@sunsentinel.com, 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash