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Police brutality is never out of style in the state of Florida. Most recently, a man named Thomas Farley suffered an interaction with law enforcement that will alter his life permanently.
According to ClickOrlando, Farley was found hiding behind a tree branch as police searched the area surrounding a Circle K gas station in Palm Bay, Florida. Although he had not committed a crime, he fled over a fence and ran into an adjacent neighborhood. When he attempted to jump back over the fence, a Palm Bay officer deployed his Taser multiple times causing Farley to fall forward, break the fence, and fall face-first onto the ground. Upon medical examination by a doctor, it was determined that Farley had fractured his spine and potentially broken his neck.
Ubiquitous civil rights attorney Ben Crump is now representing the family.
Crump held a press conference this week alongside the family to address the incident and call for justice.
“If any charges should be brought, it should be against the officer, not against this man laying in the hospital across the street, unable to move his legs and trying to use his hands, learning how to just live again, where his mother and the nurses have to feed him, bathe him, clean him, help him use the bathroom,” Crump said during Wednesday’s news conference. “It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
Thomas’ mother Pam Farley had a particularly heartbreaking message about her son’s condition.
“I’ve been here feeding him, and it breaks my heart,” Pam Farley said. “The boy’s 32, and he doesn’t even want to live. Randomly, he says, ‘Just take my life. Just let me go.’ And I will not let that happen because that’s my child,” she said.
There is no way that simply running away from officers with no signs of violence or threat can be worth all this. What heinous crime did the officers stop? What lives did they save? This was just another case of a cop wanting to get his adrenaline rush for the day. We hope the city of Palm Bay goes bankrupt behind this case.