The "Stand Your Ground" hearing continued Tuesday for two Broward Sheriff's deputies facing battery charges following the arrest of a teen that was captured on cellphone video.
The defense attorneys on Tuesday again attempted to show that the Tamarac shopping center where the video that went viral was taken was a dangerous place that amounted to a fight club, and argued that the deputies were in fear for their safety and should be immune from prosecution under the so-called "Stand Your Ground" immunity.
Broward Judge Jill Levy and the rest of the courtroom on Tuesday saw a separate cell phone video showing teens after school in a wild brawl in the parking lot of the Tamarac shopping plaza on a day prior to the incident where then 15-year-old DeLucca Rolle was arrested.
The video was played by defense attorneys for BSO Deputies Christopher Krickovich and Sgt. Gregory LaCerra. Both deputies say the prosecutions against them should cease.
Prosecutors say the deputies used excessive force and they have been charged with battery. The video from that day shows the teen's head hitting the pavement while Krickovich is on top of him.
Late Monday afternoon, a woman testified who works at Taravella High School and was hired to help with the students who go to the parking lot after school where a McDonald’s is located.
"It got to where the kids started fighting even with the officer there. I would have to go out and tell the officer they are having a fight over here," Mamie Williams said.
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Williams said she had been working after school at the McDonald’s a decade before things went downhill.
“Around about ‘16 or ‘17 it’s terrible. They are fighting everyday, every other day its got so bad,” she said.
Also testifying over zoom on Tuesday was Deputy Joseph Cona, who said he believed LaCerra was in big trouble because of the way he called for help over the radio.
"He was in distress like he was in danger,” Cona said.
Cona told Krickovich’s defense attorney, Jermey Kroll, that he hadn’t hear LaCerra ever sound like that on the radio before.
A woman working at a restaurant in the plaza also testified that the number of teens in the shopping plaza had a negative impact on their business and at times customers stayed away.
All the testimony was an effort to try and bolster the deputies' claim that it was a dangerous situation they were going into and therefore the "Stand Your Ground" immunity applies to them.
It's one of the first times law enforcement officers are using "Stand Your Ground" since the Florida Supreme Court gave it the green light. The burden is now on prosecutors to convince Levy by clear and convincing evidence that the deputies should not be granted the immunity.
