The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office has launched an internal investigation following the release of a video showing officers driving an armored personnel carrier pulling over a Gainesville man.
On Saturday, a sheriff’s office SWAT team pulled over Lucas Jewell, a 23-year-old Santa Fe College student, after he flipped them off. (Earlier this year, Jewell lost the Gainesville District 1 City Commission race.)
In an 18-minute video sent to the Alligator, officers told Jewell they pulled him over for making an improper hand signal. They also repeatedly asked whether Jewell’s girlfriend was performing oral sex on him, based on what it looked like from outside the car.
As a deputy looked at Jewell’s ID card, he told Jewell to stand between the armored personnel carrier’s headlights.
“Stand between the headlights where I told you to,” the deputy said in the video. “If I have to ask you again, you will be put in handcuffs and arrested for resisting.”
The deputy told Jewell that “extending your arm out the driver side window of a vehicle and flipping someone off is an improper hand signal.”
ASO spokesman Art Forgey said an armored personnel carrier is usually deployed for UF football games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. On Saturday, the football team played in the Spring football scrimmage known as the Orange & Blue Debut.
Multiple times throughout the video, the officers accused Jewell, an economics sophomore, of receiving oral sex from his girlfriend.
“Do you see my pants?” Jewell asked one of the officers. “I don’t even have a boner. Like, I’m literally flaccid right now.”
Jewell told the officers his girlfriend was sleeping and leaning against the armrest in his car.
During the video, one of the officers ordered Jewell to point his phone away from him, saying there are “firearms that are made of devices like that.”
After more than 10 minutes, the officers told Jewell he was free to go, but would receive a warning for performing an improper hand signal.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 4/14/2015]
