Did Florida Police Let 3 Teens Drown?

[responsivevoice voice=”UK English Female” buttontext=”Play”]

St. Petersburg, Florida – Three teenage girls, Dominique Battle (16), Ashaunti Butler (15), and Laniya Miller (15), died in March when they drove into a pond while being chased by police. After officers were hailed as heroes by Pinellas County Sheriff, Bob Gualtieri, for supposedly trying to rescue the girls, a dash-cam video that later surfaced in the media showed officers merely standing next to the pond as the girls screamed for help. Gualtieri has since shamed the media for suggesting the police did nothing but stand by as the teens died, and claims the video was shown out of context, however the family disputes these claims, stating there are too many inconsistencies with the police’s version of events.

According to Gualtieri, a friend of the girls asked a 36-year-old man, whose name may or may not be Damien Marriott, to drive them to a local park. The man instead drove to a neighborhood Walmart to purchase a television, even though that Walmart didn’t sell electronics, and left his keys in the ignition with the three girls he had just met inside, who in turn apparently stole the car.

Once the girls had the stolen vehicle, police reportedly spotted the teens at two different locations within the hour before their car ended up in the pond. Gualtieri says the girls were fleeing, yet the pursuing officers did not have their police lights on, and he stated that the girl’s didn’t know they were being chased.

Once in the pond, the police claimed they tried to jump in to save the girls, however the dash-cam video that surfaced only shows officers standing next to the water, debating as to whether or not the teens were dead. While one of the officers claimed to hear yelling, the other officer corrected him that the teens yelled as the car was going down, “but now, they’re done. They’re done.”

The dash-cam video:

The Huffington Post wrote up a big-fat, ass-kissy defense for St. Petersburg police, emphasizing Sheriff Gualtieri’s claim that the dash-cam video that has been spread through the media is from a different police car that was there that night. In a statement from Gualtieri:

“People need to stop with the false narrative—[my deputies] took off their belts, took off their clothes to get in the pond to rescue those girls,” he reported to HuffPost. “There were more than 15 deputies out there that night. That [YouTube video] that’s being selectively played is of deputies on the perimeter.”

After the story and video went viral, the Sheriff’s Department released another dash-cam video from that night which Gaultieri believes proves the deputies tried helping the girls, as you can see an officer pass the screen with a tank top on, holding his carefully folded uniform, however the video still does not show police in the water. Proof might be found in the dash-cam footage or audio from the actual pursuing police vehicle that night, but conveniently, that car was an older model that didn’t have a dash-cam installed.

With the numerous inconsistencies in the police’s version of events, the family’s attorney, Michele Whitfield, says she wants real, tangible evidence that officers tried to save the girls that night. In her statement:

“The girls did not have to die. They didn’t have to. [In regards to police] I know reports have indicated that they went in the water. I’m still going through the video, but I have yet to see anyone go into the water. If they did go in, I will retract my statement.”

Whitfield also finds it strange that police made it a point to immediately release the girl’s criminal history with reports of the incident, and it’s being suggested that it is part of a smear campaign to make the teens look like criminals. For those who remember, this is also what Ferguson police did with the surveillance video of Michael Brown.

In a statement from Laniya Miller’s mother, Natasha Winkler:

“My daughter was not perfect. What 15-year-old is?”

Although Sheriff Gaultieri said the investigation is ongoing, there will be no internal investigations into his deputies’ conduct.

[/responsivevoice]

This Article (Did Florida Police Let 3 Teens Drown?) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.