“Like a Ragdoll” — Black Man’s Violent Arrest Sparks Federal Lawsuit Against Jacksonville Deputies

September 29, 2023. Jacksonville. Le’Keian Woods was 24, a pᴀssenger. Deputies said the driver had no seatbelt. They also said Detective Josue Garriga had watched a drug deal at a gas station. Guns came out on a pickup. Woods ran.

He said later he ran because he thought they would shoot him. They tased him. Then the fists, knees, elbows. Video from phones and bodycams showed him on the ground, officers over him, blood on his face.

The mugsH๏τ went national: both eyes swollen shut. Lawyers later listed a ruptured kidney, a head injury, nerve damage, lasting trouble with the left eye, migraines.

He picked up a misdemeanor for resisting without violence. The cocaine story from the gas station did not stick as the center of the case the public saw. Sheriff T.K. Waters called the force justified.

The Justice Department said in late 2023 it did not see a prosecutable federal civil-rights case at that time.

October 31, 2024, Woods sued in the Middle District of Florida: Garriga, Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough, Beau Daigle. Excessive force. Guns on a seatbelt stop. A face slammed after cuffs, the complaint says.

He asked for money for what the beating left in his body.Garriga was already off the street by then. In July 2024 he pleaded guilty to a separate federal child-Sєx crime.

In November 2024 a judge gave him 24 years and four months. That case is not the traffic stop. It is the record of the man who helped start the stop.

The pH๏τos with this post are the arrest scene, Woods in court stripes, and the swollen face.

The beating itself is on tape. This page is stills. A young Black man left a traffic stop looking like a war. The sheriff said the law allowed it. A federal complaint says it did not.

That fight is the lawsuit — not a new street video from 2026