Garland Trice has been released from Jefferson County’s W.C. “Dub” Brassell Detention Center after being hospitalized following an incident at a Jefferson County Quorum Court meeting on Monday evening that ended with him being tasered.
Sheriff’s deputies took Trice, 76, to the Jefferson Regional Medical Center after he complained of chest pains on his way to the jail.
He was released from the hospital, then booked into the jail at 8:25 p.m. Wednesday, only to be released 66 minutes later.
He has a court appearance scheduled for June 25.
According to the jail log, Trice was accused of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and refusal to submit to arrest.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Video from The Heat magazine shows deputies trying to force Trice into a patrol unit when he was claimed to have used his leg to keep himself upright and shouted obscenities toward the deputies.
Trice was escorted from a Quorum Court meeting at around 6 p.m. after an attempt to make public comments resulted into heated exchanges with Justices of the Peace Alfred Carroll Sr. and Reginald Johnson.
Trice apparently objected to being notified that his allotted time to speak expired, telling Johnson “You need to shut up” and “You’re not gong to tell me to sit down.”
Johnson apparently took offense to Trice’s demand to “shut up,” moments after Trice objected to Carroll’s request to state his name for the record.
Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr. was to said to have tried to calm Trice down and warned he could be thrown out of the Quorum Court room, the video shows. A few seconds later, a deputy escorted Trice out.
It is still unclear what happened from the time Trice was escorted out to when the video caught him lying on the ground near the police car with his shirt coming undone and his torso exposed.
Security footage from the courthouse has not been made available, and deputies did not wear body cameras.
Woods said state law does not require body cameras to be worn.
Woods and his deputies have been criticized for using a Taser on an older man while he was handcuffed.
Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson, who did not attend the meeting, said in a statement: “I fail to see the probable cause for an arrest and the excessive force displayed by the Sheriff and deputies of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Use of force, less of lethal, can be applied regardless of whether an individual is handcuffed,” Woods said.
“You can be handcuffed and still noncompliant. You can still not gain compliance from someone in handcuffs. Just because someone is handcuffed doesn’t mean they are noncompliant.”
A message seeking comment was left for Trice. Jay Paul Coleman, an attorney who represents Trice on lawsuits he and other residents filed against county employees citing unrelated issues, said Wednesday he and Trice would consider taking legal action over Monday’s incident.