An attorney is pursuing state and federal claims against Mississippi law enforcement officers he says brutally beat an unarmed Black man out of his clothes at a road block checkpoint.
“He was totally naked out there,” attorney Carlos Moore said of his client David Logan.
Moore released a photo of Logan to Atlanta Black Star Tuesday that showed his face bloody and one of his eyes swollen shut as he sat with his hands behind his back.
Moore said the man sustained the injuries when officers of the Water Valley Police Department and Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department brutally beat him after accusing Logan of trying to run from them during a checkpoint at about 11 p.m. July 18 at Stephens and Wood streets in Water Valley.
Moore said authorities asked his client to get out of a vehicle and when he walked away from them, “they jumped on him and threw him to the pavement.”
Moore said he doesn’t know how Logan ended up with his clothes off but authorities used a Taser on him, stood him up and handcuffed him in a “bizarre” arrest.
The attorney added that they punched Logan in the face and even used a flashlight to beat him at times.
“They beat him unmercifully while he was in handcuffs,” Moore said.
Yalobusha County Sheriff Lance Humphreys laid out a different series of events in an interview with NBC affiliate WTVA.
He told the news station officers initially tried to arrest Logan because he had no driver’s license and he dropped a bag that appeared to have illegal drugs in it, but he resisted, kicked and hit officers.
Humphreys said even after using a Taser on Logan and getting him in handcuffs, he tried to get away a second time.
He even tried to physically run over an officer while wearing handcuffs, Humphreys said.
A Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agent was eventually able to help officers get Logan under control, Humphreys said.
He added that officers told him they had never encountered anyone with that kind of strength and they suspected Logan was under the influence of ecstasy or pure methamphetamine.
Humphreys said both of his deputies were hurt that night and one might need knee surgery.
After the incident, Logan was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford, where he was then sent by ambulance to a level-one trauma center in Memphis.
Moore said Logan was released from the hospital around noon July 19.
He suffered a broken orbital and will need to see a plastic surgeon and be evaluated for a brain injury, the attorney said. Logan is seeking counseling because he can’t sleep, and he’s still seeing double vision, Moore added.
“He is still traumatized,” Moore said. “He is afraid for his life.”
Logan was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, Humphreys said.
Logan’s legal team is asking the state attorney general to investigate the incident and sending a notice of civil claim Wednesday to the sheriff’s office, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and the Water Valley Police Department.
Moore said he plans to bring on civil rights attorney Ben Crump as co-counsel and that the two have a news conference planned for Monday.
Crump is best known for his work representing the families of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown Jr. and Tamir Rice, who were all young Black males shot and killed while unarmed.
