Beth Reese Cravey, County Line Staff Writer
February 28, 2001 Wednesday, Community Edition
Copyright 2001 The Florida Times-Union
The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)
February 28, 2001 Wednesday, Community Edition
(Clay County, Fla.) -- An internal investigation by the sheriff’s office has cleared deputies of wrongdoing in connection with a police brutality complaint filed last year by a Green Cove Springs area couple who were arrested after a confrontation with police.
The complaint was filed Dec. 28 by Charles and Patricia Fryer about an incident two days before Christmas in which they said they were unjustly arrested, physically hurt and denied medical attention by deputies.
But the internal investigation, by a detective in the agency’s Public Integrity Section, said those charges were unfounded.
‘There was nothing learned in the course of this investigation to indicate any improper conduct or procedure by [any] member of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office,’ said Detective C.D. Richey in the report. ‘The arrest of the Fryers . . . was reasonable and lawful and the minimal use of force was within the department’s general orders and policies and procedures.’
The report was dated Jan. 29 and signed by Sheriff Scott Lancaster Feb. 7.
Charles Fryer said the report was ‘very inaccurate’ and said he was considering filing a civil lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office.
The arrests stemmed from a Dec. 23 911 call from the Fryers’ 13-year-old daughter about shots being fired from inside the family home on County Road 209.
The deputies who responded said they found Patricia Fryer on the front porch, armed with a loaded .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol. They said she and Charles Fryer were intoxicated and that Charles Fryer tried to block them from entering the house.
Fryer, who is Orange Park’s utility superintendent, was charged with resisting arrest without violence and disorderly intoxication. He pleaded no contest to the charges the day after the arrests. Patricia Fryer was charged with discharging a firearm within an occupied dwelling and discharging a firearm while under the influence of alcohol and narcotic medication; those charges are still pending.
She was arrested a second time on Jan. 6 and charged with child abuse and tampering with a witness, in connection with the Dec. 23 incident. Two of the three teenage Fryer children were home at the time of the earlier incident.
The Fryers acknowledged that they had consumed alcoholic beverages -- Patricia Fryer said she was also taking medication for anxiety attacks at the time -- but denied being intoxicated. Patricia Fryer said that she fired shots out her daughter’s bedroom window after someone threw an orange through the window; the family had had trouble recently with a gang of teenagers attempting to vandalize their home, her husband said.
Also, Patricia Fryer said that deputies and jail personnel refused to give her her medication. But the investigative report said jail policy restricts them from doing so. Only a jail nurse, in consultation with a doctor, can issue medication. The jail does not have a nurse on duty during the midnight shift, when the Fryers were brought in, and the couple were released from jail the next morning before a nurse arrived for the morning shift. There was no medical emergency to warrant summoning EMTs, the report said.
Charles Fryer denied that he interfered with police and said he suffered a broken rib and other injuries when he was put on the ground to be handcuffed and arrested. He also denied a section of the report that said his son told a friend that the rib injury occurred earlier during a tussle between father and son and was not related to the arrest.
In addition, Fryer said the agency violated the Florida Open Records Act by making public a report that referred to his minor children by name and releasing the report while the case against his wife was still pending.
‘It seems kind of ludicrous how they’re doing it,’ he said. ‘We’re all doing fine, doing our best to stay together and get through this, awaiting the outcome. We’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but [because of the release of the report] we’re being tried in the paper.’
Mary Justino, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said the investigation into the Fryers’ police brutality complaint was separate from the case against Patricia Fryer, so her pending case did not affect the release of the report. Also, the state’s so-called Sunshine Law provides for the release of a report and documents related to a complaint against an officer ‘in its entirety’ when the probe is completed, she said. And in the Dec. 23 incident, which prompted the complaint, the Fryer children were not viewed by the agency as victims, but rather as witnesses, she said.