The Jacksonville Community Action Committee and Woods’ family are demanding change from city and state leaders.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville social justice organization and the family of Le’Keian Woods rallied on the steps of the Duval County Courthouse Thursday night, calling for an end to police brutality.
Video of JSO officers aggressively arresting the 24-year-old in September made national headlines.
The Jacksonville Community Action Committee and Woods’ mother Natassia Woods are demanding change from city, state and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office leaders.
They’re asking for the JSO Gang Unit to be disbanded, for a Public Safety Committee to be established and for State Attorney Melissa Nelson to charge officers involved in use of force cases.
Woods is still in the Leon County Jail. Natassia said he’s supposed to be released late Thursday or early Friday.
She also said the charges against him in Duval County were downgraded this week.
Natassia spoke before a crowd at the demonstration, saying JSO’s Gang Unit is not making Jacksonville a better place.
“They’re like a bullying taskforce more so than helping the community,” Woods said. “There’s too many people being killed and there’s too many people being injured and hurt badly by the hands of these officers.”
Gang unit members performed a traffic stop that ended with Woods’ arrest. Body camera footage shows officers hitting him at least 17 times. A mugshot showed woods with swollen, bruised eyes and a cut on his lip.
Monica Gold is a member of the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. She said a traffic stop shouldn’t end like that.
“It resulted in him being beaten so badly that you could barely recognize him. No human being should be treated that way, as if they don’t matter, as if their life is insignificant.”
After video of officers slamming Woods to the ground went viral, police said he was violently resisting arrest, and that’s what he was originally charged with.
Woods’ mother said this week, that changed to resisting an officer without violence.
“Now he has a resisting without violence, so that says a lot if the state attorney says there’s no violence that he showed,” Natassia said, “and then y’all are saying he’s violent, and that’s why he got beat up the way he is.”
Woods is set to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5 at the Duval County Courthouse.
