By Matt Agorist
Jacksonville, FL — In 2016, the Free Thought Project reported on the story of Officer Akinyemi Borisade who was caught on multiple videos beating Mayra Martinez — one while she was handcuffed and the other while she was on the ground at a local strip club. At the time, we predicted that the taxpayers of Jacksonville would eventually be held liable.
Now, Martinez has been awarded a $92,000 taxpayer-funded settlement and an apology — hardly enough, considering the utterly horrifying abuse this woman suffered at the hands of police.
After the settlement was reached on Tuesday, Sheriff Mike Williams had this message for Martinez in a deposition video:
I will take the opportunity to apologize to Ms. Martinez for the way she was treated while going to jail. In my view it was inappropriate, excessive, and again an apology for that to her, and we wish her well.
Martinez, 31, had a bad first day on the job at the local Scores Bar in Jacksonville. That afternoon, she became intoxicated, quit, and refused to leave, so police were called. When police arrived at the bar around 5 p.m., they arrested Martinez and charged her with trespassing and resisting.
According to the police report, Martinez was drunk and belligerent when two officers showed up to remove her from the property. When police tried to place her in handcuffs, Martinez tried to kick and bite officers, according to the report.
According to the lawsuit, as Jacksonville.com reports:
The filing states employees at Scores Gentleman’s Club on University Boulevard forced Mayra Martinez to leave the premises on her first day of work while she was intoxicated and without giving back her purse.
Her car keys, house keys, phone, identification, Social Security card and other belongings were in the purse, according to the lawsuit, yet she was still asked to leave.
The lawsuit also states an employee made false statements about Martinez in a sworn affidavit and that she may have been slipped a drug without her knowledge.
To deal with the unruly woman who was half their size, two officers, one of them Akinyemi Borisade, threw the intoxicated Martinez to the ground. In the video, Borisade is seen dropping fist after fist into the back, head and face of Martinez. He also slams the woman’s face into the concrete repeatedly.
Borisade’s assault could have possibly been spun as appropriate force had he not lost it when bringing Martinez to jail.
Video released by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office shows Martinez attempt to walk over to the officers before Borisade grabs her and slams her into the wall.
After being slammed into the wall by the officer, Borisade proceeded to unleash a fury of fists to the head and face of Martinez after her foot grazed his pant leg.
“He could have turned her around and held her in a transporting position that they are trained in back over to the location to wait by the door,” then-Undersheriff Pat Ivey said after watching the video at the time. “He could have stood there with her, but there was no need to strike her.”
For nearly 15 minutes, Martinez lay unconscious on the floor as cops did nothing but simply warn their fellow cop that his actions were being recorded.
According to the report, Martinez ended up pleading guilty to one count of resisting an officer without violence, according to court records. Then she went after Borisade and the people in uniform who stood by and watched the violence unfold.
Equally as disturbing as watching a cop pummel a handcuffed woman was the fact that the other officers stood by and allowed it to happen.
When paramedics finally were called, Borisade didn’t tell them about her head injuries, only that he punched her in the stomach, according to the lawsuit. He also denied her further medical treatment against their advice, and officers continued to use excessive force when she was moved to another room. That force included male and female officers taking Martinez to the ground while she was trying to change clothes and laying on top of her while she was nude, according to the lawsuit.
Her troubles continued into the night when when members of the Sheriff’s Office integrity unit ignored her request for an attorney to be present during their questioning, the lawsuit states.
There is a duty to report a crime that is seen yet none of the officers who watched Borisade beat a handcuffed woman reported anything. Officers also have a duty to not only report the crime they witnessed but also to step in and stop it. That did not happen.
What’s more, Officer Akinyemi Borisade was originally charged with a misdemeanor over this incident, but that was expunged after Borisade said he had been trained to “do some of the actions.”
This should come as no surprise, considering the fact the sheriff’s department hired Borisade in the first place, in spite of his criminal record.
Before Borisade went to work for the JSO, he was arrested by them, twice. In 2008, he was arrested for petty theft after trying to steal from a Belk on the Arlington Expressway and in 2011, an incident report from JSO asserts that he busted out a woman’s rear window on her car.
Since neither of the incidents were felonies, the JSO had no problem hiring a criminal to enforce the law.
Below is the inevitable result of such irresponsible practices.
Source: The Free Thought Project
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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