NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – A North Charleston woman is suing the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office after she says she was denied a phone call for more than 13 hours and was tased by officers while strapped in a chair.
On March 27th 2014, a North Charleston woman was arrested and charged with assault around 10:30 p.m. Neighbors called North Charleston Police saying the woman had been banging on the door to her mother’s house.
When police arrived, the woman’s attorney, Gregg Meyers, says authorities claimed to have seen a bloody purse and shoe near the house. Meyers says authorities cite these items as justification for going inside the house where they found the woman asleep in a bedroom.
Attorneys for the woman say the officers unlawfully entered the home without a warrant, and then after putting up a fight with an officer, she was arrested.
Meyers claims the woman was denied a phone call for 14 hours and was eventually tased after being uncooperative. Meyers told News 2, “We can’t figure out if she was treated badly because she was charged with assault on a police officer that was dropped, or if everybody gets treated this badly…I thought it was completely outrageous.”
Attorneys say at the detention center, one of the detention officers puts their hand around the woman’s throat and assaults her by strangulation.
Meyers tells News 2 all of this may have been avoided if the officers followed the law and rules of the jail.
According to the civil rights lawsuit called Jane Doe 202a v. Cannon et al., which was filed Feb. 22 in U.S. District Court in Charleston, jail policy states an inmate should be allowed to make a phone call early in the intake process.
After hours in jail, the woman called her uncle and said, “I’ve been in jail since midnight last night, and now it’s 12 hours later, and mom has been home alone this whole time.”
There is also another lawsuit from the mother’s guardians who are suing the city of North Charleston, and five specific officers, because the mother, who suffers from dementia, was left alone when her daughter was arrested.
“Anybody with an elderly family member needs to pay attention to this case,” said Meyers.
Attorneys representing the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office were not immediately available for comment on the case Wednesday evening.
In a deposition, one of the accused officers said an inmate doesn’t get a phone call right away if they’re being unruly.
Meyers said the mother was so shook up and confused from being left alone, she was hospitalized at the Medical University of South Carolina for three to four weeks after the incident.
