Pasco sheriff settles lawsuit filed over controversial policing program
The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office reached a settlement Tuesday with people who said they were subjected to unconstitutional monitoring and harassment by deputies.
The agency agreed to pay $105,000 to four plaintiffs, settling the case ahead of trial.
The lawsuit alleged that their constitutional rights were violated after they became subjects of the sheriff’s “prolific offender” program, which used predictive policing to target people the agency deemed at risk of committing crimes, including people under 18. Documents from the program revealed that there were no limits on how often deputies could conduct checks on suspected offenders or requirements for deputies to have probable cause that a crime had occurred.
The agency’s project was the subject of a 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
The settlement said the Sheriff’s Office has ended the practices that the plaintiffs sued over.
A sheriff’s office spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that the settlement was “strictly a financial decision” because costs for trial could have reached millions of dollars, paid for by taxpayers. The settlement will be paid for by the Florida Sheriff’s Association Risk Management Fund.
The case settled this week was based on alleged false reporting by former members of the sheriff’s office who helped conduct the prolific offender program. Those deputies were held accountable and disciplined for their actions, the spokesperson said. The agency maintained that its “written policies” for the program were constitutional.
“The Pasco Sheriff’s Office will never apologize for keeping our community safe and holding those who victimize our community accountable for their actions,” the agency wrote in an email.
The lawsuit was headed by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties law firm. In a news release Wednesday, the group said the sheriff’s office used a “crude computer algorithm” to predict who would be targeted by deputies.
“For years, the Pasco Sheriff ran an unconstitutional program, harassing kids and their parents because a glorified Excel spreadsheet predicted they would commit future crimes,” said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Rob Johnson. “Today the Sheriff acknowledged that dystopian program violated the Constitution and agreed never to bring it back.”
The Times 2020 investigation showed that deputies would show up at houses in the middle of the night. They would write tickets for missing mailbox numbers and tall grass, sticking residents with court dates and fines. The deputies would try to find any reason to make an arrest.
Documents showed that one former deputy said the goal was to “make their lives miserable until they move or sue.”
Darlene Deegan, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a news release that for years the sheriff’s office treated her like it could do anything it wanted.
“But today proves that when ordinary people stand up for themselves, the Constitution still means what it says,” Deegan said.
Justin Garcia is the state and local accountability reporter, with a focus on law enforcement and the judicial system. Reach him at jgarcia@tampabay.com.
Pasco sheriff settles lawsuit filed over controversial policing program