A Florida woman said she is having trouble sleeping at night after being hit three times with a police stun gun.
The retired food-service worker is now facing two felony charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer after an interaction with law enforcement that involved their search for her grandson Tevin Turner.
Pinkney said she looked out a front window that day and saw two deputies near her car. Her 19-year-old granddaughter was in the back of her house and saw two officers behind the home, she said.
Turner was wanted on an arrest warrant for violating his probation by carrying a concealed weapon, according to the probable cause affidavit. Authorities went to Pinkney’s home because he had provided her address while on probation although he wasn’t living at her home, Pinkney said.
Patrol deputies were trying to enter her home for several minutes, according to the affidavit. Pinkney told The Washington Post that she thinks authorities kicked on the door because the sound was too hard to be a knock.
Manatee County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Riley told a man standing at Pinkney’s door that officers had a warrant and that if they found Turner inside the home, he could also be arrested, according to the report.
Pinkney walked to the front door and identified herself as the owner of the home and said, “You aren’t coming inside without a search warrant,” according to the affidavit.
Riley didn’t need a search warrant because of a Florida statute that gives officers the right to enter a building with an arrest warrant if there is belief that a suspect is present.
After Riley explained that to Pinkney, she still refused to step aside. “No, you show me the warrant,” she said, according to the report.
Pinkney said she didn’t know about the law.
Riley gave one more warning: If he came in and found Turner or if Pinkney prevented him from coming in, she would be arrested, according to documents.
As deputies pushed the door in, Pinkney blocked it with her left leg while trying to close it, according to footage taken by a relative that was obtained by WFLA.
In the video, an officer grabs the grandmother by the wrist as she pulls back, and the pop of a stun gun is heard. She screams.
“It was hurting and that’s when I went down,” she said. “The silver piece went in my arm, and it was sticking out.”
Pinkney was stunned in the left arm, which had no effect on her, according to the report. She told The Post it was a painful experience.
She was stunned again in the back, taken to the ground and rolled onto her stomach, the affidavit states. She refused to place her hands behind her back, clutching them beneath her body, according to the report.
Pinkney said she had fallen on her hands and actually wasn’t trying to resist arrest.
“I couldn’t move,” she said.
Riley placed his knee on Pinkney’s back and warned that he would stun her again if she didn’t comply. Pinkney again resisted, and Riley used his stun gun on her upper back, according to the document. The third strike didn’t have any impact on the 5-foot-2 woman, according to the report.
As Riley held the grandmother on the ground with his knee, another officer placed handcuffs on her, according to the report.
Pinkney said she has bruises on her arm from the stun gun and marking on her face from being pinned down by the officer.
Pinkney then refused to get in a patrol car, causing Riley to pull her body inside, according to his statement.
Nothing was going through her mind at the time, she said. “I was doing nothing but hollering and crying.”
Pinkney’s grandson wasn’t found in her home. Riley said there was enough time for him to leave through the back of the home, given all the “chaos” at the front, according to the affidavit.
As officers were leaving the scene, a neighbor’s dog got loose and tried to attack a police dog. The threatening dog was also stunned by officers, authorities said.
Pinkney was booked Thursday morning and released Friday evening after her daughter posted $1,000 bond. She spent the night in jail crying, she said.
If convicted on her charges, she faces up to six years of incarceration, six years of probation and up to $6,000 in fines. The penalties are something she tries not think about, she said.
In a statement Monday, Sheriff Rick Wells defended the actions of his officers.
“Deputies had lawful reason to enter the residence and search for Tevin Turner,” Wells wrote. “Had Barbara Pinkney complied with the duputies orders, none of this would have happened. From everything we can see at this point, it appears the deputy did what he had to do."
He added that the department takes “allegations of excessive force seriously, which is why we have opened an internal investigation to gather all the facts.”
Riley was named in a lawsuit for a similar situation after a July 2008 search went awry for a 75-year-old man’s grandson. The man refused to allow Riley in his home without a search warrant after telling officers his grandson was in Washington state, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.
The man was arrested and charged with the same offenses as Pinkney’s but was cleared in January 2009, the paper reported.
The man unsuccessfully sued Riley and other officers, accusing them of unlawful entry to his home, false arrest, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Officers were cleared of the charges, according to Herald-Tribune.
For Pinkney, her experience with Riley and the other officers continues to haunt her at night with flashbacks, she said.
“I was thinking they might be coming back,” she said.
This post has been updated.
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