Excessive force lawsuit in Florida after Hurricane Ivan

When you think of what life is like after a hurricane comes thru, houses destroyed after neighborhoods have been evacuated, it's easy to understand how people can be hyper-vigilant. This sounds as if everyone was trying to do the right thing when all hell broke loose.

We moved to Central Florida from Massachusetts right before all the hurricanes hit. Charlie was the worst for us. I remember walking around, looking at all the damage on my street, in shock. None of my neighbors evacuated because Charlie was not supposed to hit here. None of us bordered up our windows either. Adding in all that stress, topping it off with an evacuated neighborhood, it's easy to understand all that happened that day to the people involved in this.

'Excessive force' lawsuit filed over post-Ivan confrontation (with documents)
Andrew Gant
Daily News
A federal lawsuit is stirring in Santa Rosa County, four years after the plaintiffs say they were beaten - one Tasered - and wrongfully arrested during post-Hurricane Ivan looting.

Daniel and Cathy Thompson of Navarre and former Navarre resident Edgar Knowling are seeking unspecified damages from Sheriff Wendell Hall and seven others for "blatant use of excessive force," according to their complaints.

"Since the incident ... (the Sheriff's Office) has also engaged in a course of misconduct to cover up, conceal and/or manipulate facts surrounding the case," according to the plaintiffs' complaint.

One defendant, former Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputy Richard Farnham - accused of being the main aggressor - already has been convicted of civil rights violations in his own trial.

The Sheriff's Office, the Thompsons and Knowling all declined to comment on the case, but the complaints are long and detailed.

The facts

Knowling spotted two strangers near a neighbor's garage on Tidewater Lane late Sept. 20, 2004, four days after Ivan struck and knocked out power and devastated homes in Navarre.

Knowling, a retired Air Force colonel, was armed with a long-barreled shotgun that night. He fired a warning shot into the ground and told the men to get away from his evacuated neighbor's home.

Nearby, Daniel Thompson, a retired New York City police captain, heard the gunshot, woke up and came outside with his chrome revolver.

But the men in the garage weren't looters. They were sheriff's deputies investigating prior reports of looting, according to court records.

What happened next is disputed.
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